Laird Hamilton Shoots the Pier in Malibu on a SUP Board..

This came just in the last couple days as the surf has been kicked up big time by a hurricane in the Pacific sending surfers across the West Coast scrambling to call in sick for a few days.  Now Hamilton has "shot the pier" a few times in the past--on a surfboard.  This is the first time I've seen on video of him doing it on a SUP board with a paddle in hand.

Oh, and he also swam out and rescued a drowning man on this same day...Some men are just blessed by the gods...

Book Review: Gunship Ace--The Wars of Neall Ellis, Helicopter Pilot and Mercenary

I've always been interested in the lesser known conflicts of South Africa and Africa in general which receive little media interest compared to say Europe and the Middle East here in the US.  I also have always found those who choose to participate in war for money or ideals as mercenaries.

This then provided a nice joining of the two interests as Neal Ellis fought on the side of South Africa against Angola and its Cuban proxies during the '70s and '80s and also fought in a number of other conflicts--Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Afghanistan, etc. as a helicopter pilot in a number of roles ever since.

Unfortunately the author, Al Ventor, is not exactly a skilled writer.  More of a newspaper reporter trying his hand at a long form story, the book is a regurgitation of interviews he has done with Neall Ellis added to Ventor's own dry observations from his time in the field as a war correspondent.  There is little story flow or connection between the various parts of the work.  We're here one minute and there the next with no threads between the two places.  Neall Ellis also remains a cardboard cutout and not a fully fleshed character as we get little insight into him as a person and only get a paragraph here and there of his own words to describe his thoughts and feelings.

Ellis' resume is impressive, piloting Mi-8s and Mi-24s across the globe in addition to his earlier flights behind the rudder of a number of South African helicopters.  He comes across as an honorable individual who was not solely driven to fight out of a desire for money but more out of need for employment and few options for a man of his very specific skill sets.  His history includes the participation in missions that saved the lives of a number of UK serviceman who had been taken captive in Sierra Leone where he earned the majority of his fame (and a sizable bounty on his head).
Ellis is currently (or at least most recently) operating in Afghanistan with a number of NGOs supporting US and other operations.

Most interesting within this work is the shear number of conflicts that Ellis was involved in and that one generally forgets are actually taking place at any one time.  That Ellis survived the antiaircraft fire present at every turn in this piece is amazing.  You do get to learn a good deal about the modern mercenary here as well as a fair introduction into a number of lesser known conflicts but its style, structure and disjointed nature of its telling leaves Ellis deserving of a better encapsulation.

Global RallyCross and Offroad Motorsports Ratings for 8/2/14 & 8/3/14

Though there are some positives to take away from this past weekend's GRC broadcast rating, the bottom line is that it reinforces its status as a marginal TV product for prime sports viewing hours.

Admittedly, this past Sunday's show was not a live race, nor even a tape delayed one.  Instead it was a recap of the first five events of the season packaged into a neat hour and a half, edited down format.
On network TV it was competing directly against golf over on CBS.  Most concerning here is its ratings within the middle of NBC's motorsports/Red Bull oriented shows with a Mecum auto auction related and a Red Bull sponsored multi-sport adventure in Patagonia programs preceding GRC and brief show on Kurt Busch's attempt at the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 double coming after.

The GRC broadcast failed to hold the lead-in 0.4 ratings of a car auction or cross country trek and failed to support the 0.5 rating of the KB program.  Given NBC already had a full hour of the KB special in the tank (they would broadcast it the following day on NBCSN) they probly are kicking themselves for not running a full hour or more of that and cutting back on the GRC broadcast--though this is likely mitigated by the money Red Bull paid NBC for the airtime, perhaps Red Bull paid NBC more for the airtime than NBC could have sold the advertising space for on an extended KB show...perhaps.

On the positive side...the in house produced World of X Games surfing event and MLS soccer game on NBC both also saw 0.3 ratings so Red Bull can at least say--Hey, we'll pay you to put on our broadcast which will likely grab the same ratings as these other programs that YOU have to pay to produce.

So the 8/3 GRC broadcast saw some 347,000 households watching with an estimated 381,500 actual viewers.  Ratings for GRC's broadcasts for the year now are as follows:

5/24--0.4
6/22--0.3
7/20--0.5
7/26--0.3
8/3--0.3

TELECAST	DATE	NET	TIME (ET)	RATING
World of X Games: ASP Surfing	8/2	ABC	3:00-4:00pm	0.3
"ESPN Sports Saturday"	8/2	ABC	4:00-6:00pm	0.5
"PGA Tour 2014: Playing With A Purpose"	8/2	CBS	1:00-2:00pm	0.5
WGC-Bridgestone Invitational: Third Round	8/2	CBS	2:00-6:00pm	1.9
MLS: Galaxy-Timbers	8/2	NBC	3:00-5:00pm	0.3
Breeders' Cup Challenge: Whitney Handicap	8/2	NBC	5:00-6:30pm	0.6
Guinness Int'l Champions Cup: Manchester United-Real Madrid	8/2	Fox	4:00-6:00pm	0.6
"PGA Championship Preview: This Is Major"	8/3	CBS	1:00-2:00pm	0.6
WGC-Bridgestone Invitational: Final Round	8/3	CBS	2:00-6:00pm	3.1
Mecum Dealmakers	8/3	NBC	2:00-3:00pm	0.4
"Red Bull: Project Acheron: Patagonia"	8/3	NBC	3:00-4:00pm	0.4
"Global Rallycross: Season Review"	8/3	NBC	4:00-5:30pm	0.3
"Kurt Busch 36"	8/3	NBC	5:30-6:00pm	0.5
Pro Football HOF Game: Giants-Bills	8/3	NBC	8:15-11:00pm	5.8