Overboard | Overload

So I suppose I'm a tad bit late on my new year's post...let me try to explain.

I think I've found the edge.  Im in deep.  Years ago a close friend gave me a book called, The Way of the Superior Man.  Aside from the misleading title, its fantastic.  I'm not going to try to explain much about it here aside from a main point of the book is about a man finding his 'edge'...that being the point at which he has applied himself so fully that he feels tension about it, questions if it's too far and feels that "yeeeeeeah maybe I have".  The point that makes you rise to the occasion and conquer your task, emotional, physical, spiritual, whathaveyou.  Its a self help book, but not the wimpy kind.  The kind that makes you feel like you've got a bit of sense about yourself and your purpose as you read it...but I digress.  

I think I've found the edge.  As if building surfboards full-time start-to-finish wasn't enough or beyond that, having about 30 orders at a time consistently for the past 6+ months, I decided somewhere in there to buy a 1948 Chevy school bus to convert into my dream home on wheels.  Then with all this footage I've collected over the past few years, why not make a surf movie?  And HEY why stop there?!  Lets pick up an old motorcycle along the way and get back into the hobby that consumed my high-school years in Seattle...modifying and rebuilding bikes.  And lets do it ALL AT THE SAME TIME! 

Yeah great idea, Ryan...

I suppose I tend to live in the moment a little too much, and I can forget about the big picture, but if I didn't, I don't think I'd be able to look back at my journey to old age and feel like I really lived to my potential...That is to say, as I write this, I feel like there is no possible way I'll ever finish all of this, but tomorrow somehow I'll wake up believing full-well that I can, and will, to the fullest extent.

In the midst of feeling totally overwhelmed and beyond consumed with the things that I want to accomplish, something hit me.
All of this is the greatest privilege I could ever wish for.  This load is what I want.  An honest and old-fashioned challenge of my own creation.

I'm fueling every passion and whim I have by doing what I love with complete honesty and respectability.  I don't lie cheat or steal to get what I need and I build true relationships with the people that I come into contact with through all of this.

Every year I say it, and every year I mean it, I could not ask for more.

This week's accomplishments include acquiring old-growth redwood that was reclaimed from George Lucas' house...this is civil-war-era stuff, absolutely impossible to find, and it will become the interior walls of my home...faaaantastic!

I finished off a few boards this week, somehow colors match up sometimes and I end up with a batch of boards that could be a collection of their own:

                                      

Oh ya and the bike...I laid into that a bit and made a few parts acquisitions and mocked them up.  

Lots and lots more to do but here's a small window into where we're going with this one (1995 xr600r).  Don't mind the giant exhaust...that won't be sticking around.