brindleblog'n

NANO NEURONS
Scientists at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) have successfully
grown nerve cells using an artificial three-dimensional network of nanofibers.
This development could lead to the reversal of paralysis due to spinal cord injury.

The scaffold is made up of nanofibers formed by peptide amphiphile molecules.
The key breakthrough was designing the peptide amphiphiles so that when
they self-assembled into the scaffold, a specific sequence of five amino acids
known to promote neuron growth were presented in enormous density on the
outer surfaces.

"We have created new materials that because of their chemical structure
interact with cells of the central nervous system in ways that may help
prevent the formation of the scar that is often linked to paralysis after
spinal cord injury," said Samuel I. Stupp, Board of Trustees Professor of
Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry, and Medicine.

for the full story

a country is only as strong as its dreams, and those dreams come from its artistans

Tom Cruise quoting Ron L. Hubard

Thanks Tubesteak for the encouragement for me to write down my surf experience...it was liberating

Thanks NeoN for your persistence to get me to blog...you are the blogmaster

The conclusion:
Somehow, my feet land on the surfboard and I quickly wipe my eyes straining to see. I barely keep the nose of my board from submerging from the scheer straight drop as I run into absolutley flat water on my bottom turn. I crank a hard right turn and look up to assess my punishment. This is the largest wave I have ever dropped into in my surfing career so far........and with little experience it is hard to describe the ultimate mind numbing fear of my impending doom. The wave felt much much larger but was probably only 10 feet. Only 10 feet! If you ever experienced a 10 foot wave for the very first time it feels limitlessly tall, and the dynamics of a strong south swell makes the bottom of the wave drop out 4-5 feet and kicks the wave height another 2-3 feet. This kinda of wave moves very fast and breaks top to bottom and rattles the earth when it falls.

My blind take off and plummet toward the bottom of the wave gave me plenty of speed but the wrong trajectory and I find myself way ahead of the wave and in flat waters, I'm at risk of stalling in front of a monster.....now I'm cranking a bottom turn like Mark Richards hoping to get back toward the shoulder before the crest catches me. I kinda make this weird looking arc, survival stance of a turn and I see alittle shoulder and aim for it. I'm loosing speed quick and see the monster of wave railroading toward me. I hear cackles from my friends in the distance, so I know they saw me catch one and now my focus is to try to make an awkward punch under the toppling lip. In my inexperience I go for an adrenaline buzzed kinda of moving kick dive so that I don't get sucked over the falls.

This fails miserably but somehow I make it through.........I gather my wits for a second too fricken panicked to rejoice. I'm in the impact zone now and I see the 3, freak, larger than ever sets rolling in on the far outside. The last one being the largest. My heart sinks. Do I scratch like hell or just sit tight and take the punishment.......I decide to scratch like hell...........I barely make it under the first one and I don't make the second........It crashes 2 feet in front of me, rips my board out of my hands and I feel the elevator ride.......12 feet up and then twelve feet down to the sand like a halibut, I grab the sand with both hands and feel myself being dragged awhile and then lifted up 12 feet again for another elevator ride, the next time I hit the sand I grabbed deeper and felt the wave pass me by.....I launch off the bottom and swim for air.........I strike the top and gasp only to catch a layer 2 feet high of sea foam and inhale it into my lungs.....my arms are virtually noodles and I am coughing and desperately struggling for air........

I see that my surfboard has been broken but still is connected by the fiberglass on the top........I borrowed this board from a buddy and I didn't tell him about it........figures........I reel in the board from the now stretched lease that runs about 15 feet and I am relieved that I have some kind of floatation device to ease my noodle arms....the third and largest wave thunders toward me...the deeper I take a breath the more I cough from all the seafoam in my lungs

I bail from the board and free dive as far as possible..........oh joy another elevator ride up what felt like 14 feet and I plummet to become a halibut once more.....I grab some sand.......same story but this time it repeats 3 times......as soon as I hit the surface for air I am hit immediately with another monster wave and I am deeply machine washed.......my arms are useless and I have no breath......
and my broken board acts like a wave bouy dragging me for yards........now I was being swept toward the pier at an alarming rate....I envisioned myself being slammed into the pier pilings

It was at this time that I thought I was going to die......my will to live just vanished.......I fought a good fight.......better than I could have expected but I just went limp.......I didn't care anymore

In hindsight this is what probably saved my life..........for it calmed me down and allowed me to oxygenate my muscles......as I lay there floating......another wave would come up and I made no effort to dive...I had no energy left in my arms....I was like a cork floating helplessly, aimlessly, ready to perish.........then in a last ditch effort I reeled in my board, grabbed the nose with two hands and squeezed it together with my knees to force it back together again.....positioned myself to face the beach and luckily the next wave jettisoned me forward until I lost my grip and the broken board opened up again and sent me into the machine wash....I did this technique several more times unitl I was in safer waters.

10 yards from the pier I emerge from the sea like a darwinian creature crawling on my hands and knees with 15 feet of leash and a broken board behind me.........I crawl just far enough where I collapsed and slept until I was awoken by my friends asking if I was okay. I didn't speak much to anyone on the ride home......

This was the day of surfing that changed my life entirely and cast the foundation of my spirit. It taught me that I was not immortal as young men feel in thier early 20's and that King Neptune spared me my life today..........

King Neptune on this day changed me from a boy to a man, and I felt that every day forward, from this day on, was a bonus, a gift, and I began a campaign of a positve mental attitude that carries with me to this day. In the years to come I poured myself into my art as an expression of my own immortality...a direct result of my experience that surfing gave me.

I feel the wave push me down 3-4 feet and then I kick the board as hard as I can ..............I feel the force of my submerged contained bouyancy race me toward the surface, feeling the speed of the water on my face muscles.......I punch out the back of the wave and still drop 3-4 feet as the wave rolls past me........no time to rejoice my luck on making through the wave becuase here comes two more just as big.......

I made it through the next two fairly easily because of making through the first wave........I paddle out extra far to be safe and decide to just hang for awhile and catch my breath and size up the waves........I felt pretty cool sitting out there alone and thankful as hell I made it.....but reserved the rejoicing for later, when and if, my buddies made it outside with me........all of a sudden I hear this yell in the distance. The sargeant is dropping in on this perfectly shaped 8 footer and I see him get barreled going right.......I can see his shadow of his body being tubed as the back of the wave passes me.......I'm transfixed on his location to see if he makes it out alive.......he punches out and screams at the top of his lungs....we all saw it....we all began to cackle in unison from different locations.

This pumped us all up into a false sense of security for what would lie ahead.........This being the first time I had ever surfed waves this big...I timidly began to paddle into a wave that looked sort of safe.....
I would get right on the lip and with two or more hard paddles I could drop in....but the waves were sucking out and dropping 4-5 feet as the built up to 8 feet...earie seeing it for the first time...the waves were fast and hollow and made lots of explosion noises....so I would put on the breaks and stall for another wave I could muster my courage for!!!!!!

After a few stalls, I got pissed at pussing out and told myself that the next one no matter what I was going to drop into....even if I fully eat it...didn't care.....so here comes the next wave......I paddle like it was mine.....I took the two extra paddles over the top and I'm fully committed to what felt like the drop of death.......

Hands fully reaching to the sky.....a full freefall...saltwater in my eyes....a blind take off......I'm petrified

I can't remeber the temperature of the water but it must have been comfortable if it was a south swell, and I was finding my rythm........I duck dived under the waves at full kick and push to maximize my speed punchng through the other side......I began to pass a few of my buddies, paddling out....but really didn't want to get too far ahead, I suppose I needed that unspoken comfort of having someone else getting punished beside me......

As you get deeper into the impact zone area.........your strategy changes dramatically........paddle as hard and as fast as you can without paying attention to the pain in your arms, and your buddies....."hope they make it out!".........you are in substantial survival mode....your arms tell you that you need a small break but your mind says no fricken way...go go go....push...don't stop...go go go

Scratching is a perfect word for this feeling..........

It invariably comes down at this point to the one wave that you "have" make it under before it breaks on your back.........duck diving is your most powerful weapon, if you can just make it to the wave before it break..........and here comes just that wave.......it is a race.......the harder you scratch toward the wave the bigger the wave is getting.......at first you think there is no way in hell you are going to make it.......the water starts sucking out, lowers the ocean 3-5 feet and feeds teh wave to be even bigger...............and you begin to see the top of the wave begin to start breaking........shit...you think this wave is going to break right on my back........then you get accelerated like a tractor beam toward the wave from the water being sucked into the wave.......with this extra speed you begin to realize that you might have a chance if you paddle, kick and scratch like hell........the wave is half way down .......
I have t stop for a split second to bury the nose of my board so I can set up the deepest duck dive I can handle without losing balance..........I see that the wave is going to break just a split second before me...........Holy Shit.......I'm totally out of breath and have noodle arm.......my only comfort is that my buddy is behind me and he has it worse than I do........I had this weird kind of panic laugh before I submerged........The wave hits my back and rolls me like a rolling pin, I kick my duck dive at the same time........

It was an impromptu rule we had with one another when assessing large waves...........paddle out hard as you can for 1/2 hour, if you can't make it out then you don't look like a pussy and gave it your all. We were all in great shape from surf class, jogging every morning, 75 surfers running in mass down the beach always turned heads.

So there we are, 4 of us, very quite, very pensive, we watched storm debris float the strong south swell northward with surprising speed, 2-3 people out. Nothing needed to be said, just an awe for what we were seeing, and that weird feeling you get in the bottom of your stomach when self doubt rules your thinking. Then the sets came in! Scraping the bottom of the pier and seafoam foam getting everything wet

Everyone started surf calling (a kind of laughing cackle) at the top of their voices, we sounded like a bunch of wild animals. "Their breaking on the train reef" someone said. The reef was made from the trains submerged years ago to serve as an artificial reef.......the waves would spill on the reef, recollect, reorganize and come screaming into shore.....like they were pissed off they had to break before they had too........the biggest waves any of us had ever seen......I was the least experienced of the crew and could have easily been talked out of paddling out........we studied the sea and the sets longer than normal.......I was pretty quite but had surfed large waves before and felt it was feasible but not preferable.

You could feel the tension, feel the impact of a large wave rattling the ground and the foam doubling the size of the wave..........then the words came out from someone......"paddle out for a 1/2 hour".....Without a word we all split like a football team in a huddle and began suiting up.....like a race to see who got their wetsuit on first.......words were few and really unimportant......the game faces came on and everyone got serious.......

Stretching and waxing the boards on the waterline..........no eyes left the ocean the whole time........someone said to me "brindley.....how you are doing?".......all that came out was a kind of reserved utterance.....UH HUH.....the most experienced surfer became our sergeant in a way.....at the top of his voice, so we could all hear him over the waves......."We Go Now! Paddle hard and don't stop till your outside.........then keep paddling! Remember the third wave of the set is the biggest!!!!!!! See you outside

We had walked down as far as we could south of the pier to anticipate the south swell pushing north.......I remember hitting the water........full steam........andrenaline pumped to max......we were like paddling machines...no words....full focus.......we all began to drift northward immediately, so we all paddled out diagonally perfectly staggered.

We were all on short boards and the deeper we got, the less we drifted but you could feel the power of the waves and their speed from the first smaller waves you had to punch under...........once you punched under a few waves you began to feel a little more confident. I began to pace myself and focus on my breathing for what I truley felt would be a 1/2 of paddling but not punching through the impact zone.

So really I learned to surf to pick up on the hot surfer chicks in their spandex pants and tight breast hugging tops.......

I graduated high school and continued to surf........and since I was going to college I noticed that I could get credits in the collegiate surf team at Orange Coast College.........

This is where I really advanced to learn to surf all weather conditions and deal with unruley crowds control....we had about 200 people (it felt) in our college surf team.......cold rain....overcast.......stormy seas.........you name it I would surf it.........

Orange Coast College surf team practiced every tuesday and thursday mornings at the river jetties in Newport Beach, and we competed every other saturday.........if you were late......you didn't get any parking.........as eventually became my demise....as my parking tickets began to collect I began loose interest.....I quit the surf team late in the second season but I kept my new found collegiate surfer buddies and we would go on surf safaris frequently........

One such safari was in 1982.......the year of the monster waves...the pier breakers......the day I almost lost my life south side of the huntington beach pier in a strong south swell.......8-12 feet

brindley at age 19
I started surfing after I came back from living in belgium at the very impressionable age of 17........
I had bought my first car via my first job at Lamps-R-US, and bought a primer red fiat rodster cheapest coolest thing I could get and immediately attached some surf racks and set out to learn the sport........
why?..........

Flash back a few years.......I was a motocross star in the mini class (age 14) and a strong BMX competitor back in the days when huffy's ruled......if you surfed and rode bikes you were a hodad, or a squid, that could ruin your reputation as a kid.......so I stuck with one
Our family lived in Belgium for three years from a work promotion my Dad had, and all I ever heard was....
you come from California......do you surf? We looked the part...suntanned....blonde hair......
I then realized that surfing is important to everyone who doesn't surf or cannot surf anywhere else in the world? I was lucky to be raised in California and when I get back I shall learn to surf I told myself.........In europe I learned early a weird thing called punk in was getting popular in England......and a dance called the pogo.......

Flash forward coming back to California at age 17, to my old friends whom I rode motocross with I was different........even weird.......I lost my blonde and my tan from the 300 days a year that belgium has overcast............plus I wanted to surf and talk surf and listen to surf stories.............

My first day at Marina High School in Huntington Beach (I came in as a sophmore) I saw the surfer clan, fully sun bleached and tanned and the surfer chicks were absolutley beautiful........
....I immediately began to dress the part of a surfer and washed my hands of my motocycling and bicycling.....

I was all about the surf culture and punk was hip.......I captivated many people from my tales of castles, punk and the pogo..........My french was strong and the women loved it....I could say anything stupid in french and would always gain me favor toward my persistence of the p-tang

got to frag (we'll get to this later)

Monday I shall have a story on what got me into surfing and how surfing has changed my life......
I think you'll like it

The MAC turn 20 years old this year
For more info

also
Today through Sunday, the world's largest consumer technology trade show will flash the brightest silicone-embedded strobe in Las Vegas

Sony Double-Layer DVD
Real-world business app: With nearly twice the capacity of standard discs, or about 8.5GB each, double-layer DVDs will no doubt be instantly christened the non plus ultra of digital storage for entertainment-media types.
For more info

Dedicated to Chuck Hasley....whom lost his life early this year and is a freind of tubesteaks

Einstein's Theory of Relativity also postulated that Energy and Matter are interchangeable in accordance with his famous formula of E=mC2. In other words, matter could be considered as simply 'slowed down' or crystallised 'Energy' and as such the human body is nothing more than a complex 'energy field'.

For more on the therory of energy and its transformations

My birthday was jan. 3rd, so I had to get my license renewed and give a thumb print

Up to 28 million visitors to the United States now have to stop for photographs and fingerprinting under a new government program launched Monday and intended to make it harder for terrorists to enter the country.
Retina Scans and fingerprinting

Will we suffer floods, volcanic eruptions and chaos in 2012?
They reveal that the Mayan calendar prophesies the end of our own "Age of the Jaguar", the fifth and final "sun" in 2012 AD.This, according to Cotterell's sun-spot theories, will be brought about by a sudden reversal in the earth's magnetic field.

read more:
Survive 2012

Crop Circles and end of time theories

The world will not end theory

Dreamspell Theory.....very kewl