OKC Kayak Word Soup

Sorry for the lack of blogs lately.

Here is a site to keep tabs on the Olympic Canoe and Kayaking competitions.

http://www.redriver racing.org/ Olympic_Whitewat er_Letter. html

It was the second slab of metal to get hurled from the oversized, metal construction dumpster. Before it even hit asphalt, I realized my mistake. It was headed straight towards my friend’s leg. Instantaneously I cringed and winced, as I was surely sympathetically feeling the pain I had just caused. After mumbling a few four letter words under her breath to describe me, she was back at it. We had our work cut out for us.

Today’s job at hand called for a special type of person. One that is hardworking, kind, and lacking in any sense of self-esteem or dignity whatsoever. Today we were dumpster diving. Several weeks prior I had noticed a local store was having a going out of business sell-off. I made inquiry with the manager, a friend of mine, about what was to become of all the store fixtures. I was in the market for these shelves and displays for the new kayak shop, yet wished to use as much recycled stuff in the outfitting of our store. The manager told me to show up on Monday, because this is when the store was officially closed for good. He assured me that they would have some stuff to donate (We call this Habitat for Dave, rather than Habitat for Humanity– Have you scheduled your volunteer work day or material donation yet?)

Monday arrived, as did our twenty-two foot enclosed trailer which we emptied of boats to put into service for moving some store furnishings. They were really good to us, loading me up with glass showcases, wooden shelves, hat racks, and much more. On top of this, they offered to let me come back later in the week, at which point they would have all the merchandise removed from the rows of steel shelving. This too, would soon be mine for the taking.

As promised, I showed up later that week ready to haul off the donation. To my surprise, the store was already completely emptied out, with not a soul in sight. WHAT!!! Luckily, I remembered the manager speaking of a huge roll-off construction dumpster being delivered to the back alley of the strip mall where the store was located. One quick check of this semi trailer sized refuse bin confirmed my suspicions. All the metal shelves were now swimming in a medley of debris which included rotting, leftover lunch parts and all sorts of other garbage. One scan of the bin indicated that nearly the entire contents was metal shelving material and the needed supports.

As always, my schedule was hectic, and the task at hand large. I would only have about two hours free the next day to try and go salvage some of these. To wait until later would mean risking the dumpster along with the shelves getting picked up and taken to the dump where they would ultimately be discarded. The environmentalist in me was alone enough to try and prevent this from happening.

Instantly, I knew that I had but one option available to pull this off. Without hesitation, I made the call to my lifeline, Delilah Smith. (We had to come up with fake names for the somewhat covert operation which we were about to undertake.) Now folks, it takes a pretty darn special lady to agree to go dumpster diving on her day off. Today, ungodly temperatures would make this all the more true. It was 100 degrees and 100 percent humidity in the shade. … and believe, me we never were in the shade. I questioned Delilah as to if she had slathered on plenty of sunscreen. “We are not going to be out here that long are we?” I tried not to grin as I assured her that this shouldn’t take that long. Little did she know that I had purposely blocked her vehicle in with my own oversized truck and trailer. She was not leaving until I was good and ready for her to do so!

I would be the first to scale my way onto the top of the giant heap of metal. We agreed that I would throw the shelves off the dumpster, at which point Delilah would load these into my trailer. A few of the shelves on top had obvious damage, which I assumed happened when the forklift was used to squash down the contents of the dumpster to allow for more room. We peeled back layer after layer of these bent shelves, knowing that untarnished ones were surely right below. A monstrous pile of bent shelving was amassing beside the dumpster. I instructed my helper to go ahead and load these as well. She looked at me questionably as if the heat had surely gone to my brain. “That is pure treasure girl,” I assured her. Metal, Metal, Metal. Worth its weight in, well, steel??? The steel shelving supports alone, weighed a ton. “With the amount of metal in this dumpster, I bet there is a thousand dollars in here,” I assured her. She still looked skeptical.

The forays of throwing off the bent shelving continued. At this point, we had been at this for some time. The metal was so hot from the sweltering sun, that oven mitts truly would have come in handy to grab onto these. Both of us had a literal coating of white salt on our faces from the profuse quantities of sweat. I sent Delilah to the nearby 7-11 to grab us some drinks. Much to my surprise, she returned! Shortly thereafter, out of guilt, I sent her home. I would have to try and make the mangled metal mountain fit inside the trailer on my own. Away she went, with me still promising her that the kind of cash this would bring at the recyclers would make it more than worth all this.

Albeit a lot of metal that we were hauling off, we only barely scratched the surface compared to what was still landfill bound. Of the hundreds of pieces of shelving, we were unable to find one single piece which was not dented. I think the liquidators got in a hurry to get out of there and in fact used to forklift to disassembled the shelves rather than take the time to take them apart by hand. I still held to the consolation that this would all be worth it, because I would receive enough money to go buy my own shelves with the recycling proceeds.

Here is how things turned out. Delilah got a huge bruise on her leg from the flying chunk of steel. I got a puncture wound on my calf from another rogue piece of iron. We surely both suffered from sunburn and dehydration. …..but what about that cash?

Saturday morning I took the full trailer of metal to the recyclers. It was so heavy that even my unstoppable diesel truck was groaning from the massive load. I pulled onto the scale where a tare weight would be recorded. The guy at the scrapyard queried, “Watcha got?” “Steel shelving,’ I replied with a bit of a grin. “I think that is what we call tin,” he responded. “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.” This was far too much work to be told that this was the much less valuable tin, rather than steel. I could have cried, because I still had to offload the stuff to regain the use of my kayak trailer.

It would take me another couple of hours out of my busy day to discard this “junk” in the scrap heap. With my head hung low, and a crick in my back, I drove back to the scale hoping that I did not get a flat tire from all the random sharp objects which are inherent of scrapyard roads. The scale got its reading, and I went into the office to get my money. The attendant handed me the little yellow slip with the total weight of the shelves. 2 5 2 0 That is right, two thousand five hundred twenty pounds. Right beside the weight was a price per pound. 2520 @ $4 FOUR DOLLARS PER POUND. THAT IS RIGHT DELILAH, OVER ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. Right as I began to celebrate, I saw a dead car being drug across the scale outside the office. Curiosity got the best of me, so I asked the attendant how much a car like that brings on average. “About a hundred dollars at four dollars per hundred.” Huh??? HUH??? HUH????? Four dollars per hundred! I received my $105 and left. Good grief this was a lot of work for one hundred dollars. Now, I would have to probably take Delilah to dinner for her help which would probably take about half of this. The other half barely covered my fuel and antibiotic salve for the puncture wound.

What I did get out of this (besides a heck of a story), was a real eye opening look at what nice friends I have. As I stated in the beginning of this email, it is some kind of person to have been out there under these sort of circumstances. I knew that no matter the value of the treasures we pulled out of the trash heap, the real treasure was the friendship this person was offering me.

Who would you dig through the dumpster for?

Ha!!!

Oklatravel.net is featuring OKC Kayak in their online video newscast this weekend. The producer says that this will air either Saturday, Aug 2 or Sunday, Aug 3. It will be archived on the site permanently around two weeks from now.

Thank you Whitney and the Oklatravel.net staff.

Alright, alright, I confess. I am a bad listener. Those who know me best will tell you that if I start to get that glazed over look on my face, you better ask me to repeat what you just told me as confirmation that I understood what was being said. More than a time or two, people have assured me that they informed me of something, and I, at the time, nodded in agreement, yet later the entire conversation seems completely foreign to me.

I could offer up many an excuse, such as a poor memory, Attention Deficit Disorder, or more. The scapegoat I will use instead is the fact that most of the time, I am running around like a chicken that is about ready to lose his head. Simply put, this time of year we lead a hectic, busy life. This said, sometimes I am guilty of rushing a conversation or being impatient simply because there is a call on hold, three customers in the kayak shop, and another caller beeping in on the other phone line. Sometimes, there simply is not enough hours in the day to take time out to hear about some off topic, random event.

Kids tend to be the worst about interjecting these unrelated tidbits from their personal life. The kindest way I have found to gently hint to folks that the comments are straying from where the conversation needs to be focused (such as the kayak lesson at hand, etc.) is to repeat a line from the movie Jerry Maguire. For those of you who have never seen this, or may have forgotten, one evening Jerry and this precocial, little kid of about 4 years old are bantering back and forth about various sports related records, facts and figures. Suddenly the kid exclaims, “My neighbor has bunny rabbits! Yes, completely random, I know. I regularly repeat this oddball line when I am being subjected to a litany of conversation that is either way off topic, or is of absolutely no interest to me whatsoever.

Here of late, many of my friends have been throwing this line back in my face. Point taken. I am the king of long winded, somewhat useless stories and random nature facts and figures. My favorite reply which was recently offered up to my, “…neighbor has bunny rabbits” phrase was, “So does my playboy!” For the first time in a long time, this kayak guide was at a loss for words (but grinning!)

Not that the conversations I may have yet to partake in with you would ever warrant this, but if I ever were to tell you, “My neighbor has bunny rabbits,” or, “The human head weighs eight pounds,” I am only teasing, but you will catch my drift!

Oh, and by the way, did you know that Cardinals use the bark of grapevine to line their nests?

Let’s face it folks, advertising ‘aint cheap! The reality is that it is a necessary evil though. We like to brag on the fact that most of our business comes from referrals our happy customers provide, but we occassionaly do spend some of our hard earned bucks on this stuff. So, when a friend of mine recently queried as to why OKC Kayak was not sponsoring him in the annual Redbud Run, I was open to listen to his proposal. He put what we considered to be an inexpensive advertising offer on the table, and we bit the hook. His generous offer was basically this, we pay his $25 entrance fee and he wears a lifejacket during the race with our business name on it. Being the fair individuals we are (and humble too!!!), we actually offered more than what he was asking for. I antied up $50 bucks to which my buddy eagerly replied, “For fifty, I will wear the lifejacket and a kayak helmet during the entire race.” YES SSIRRR!!!! Now we are talking. This event is huge, drawing tens of thousands of participants and spectators. If Jason was willing to draw a lot of attention to OKC Kayak by dressing ridiculously and embarrassing himself, we were game.

Now, the final negotiations of this transaction did not wrap up until eleven in the evening, but buddy, let me tell you, I was out the door and on my way to do some costume shopping even though the hour was late. Two hours later, I had an overflowing shopping cart full of all sorts of arts and crafts products. Giant foam letters, ropes of wire garland with flashy gold stars, iron on T-shirt designs, and much, much more, all made the cut. One hundred dollars later, I was on my way home to spray adhesive, tape, and tack these crafty nick nacks all over a lifejacket and kayak helmet. I had this garb decorated out with some serious bling bling by the time I was done.

At the stroke of noon the next day, I delivered the outfit to our little marathon man. It was all I could do to not laugh, as I envisioned him running down the road wearing what had turned into some sort of nerdy, not so superhero outfit. He was not pleased at all, apparently feeling taken advantage of by the fact that I may have gone a little overboard in my decorations. I almost expected him to back out of our little agreement, so I asked that he bring photographic proof that he wore it, before he would get paid.  He grumble, visibly  upset, but agreeing that he would keep his word.

The day of the race arrived, and sadly, I was tied up with another event and unable to watch it firsthand.  Jason, however did deliver his photographic documentation, and the bounty was paid.  Now, he did actually tone down my crafty additions to the jacket and helmet, but I guess this is a small price to pay for his continued friendship.  Even Amber, his wife, used the iron on transfers to make a cute T-shirt that she wore.

All this for fifty bucks?  Now who is believing we are not in a recession?

The Discover Oklahoma, OKC Kayak episode will air on CBS on Saturday, July 12th. This starts at 6:30 p.m. Autograph signing will begin Sunday at 8 a.m.  Ha!

Consider this a certified public service announcement from OKC KAYAK. Hey, why not??? Plenty of folks have been giving us a free plug lately. Plus, it kinda makes me feel like Bob Barker or something.

Here is the deal, I am from a LAAAAAARGE dysfunctional Catholic family. ….so big, we actually grew up in a giant shoe. I have five sisters and 2 brothers, each of us as individual and unique as can be. (but, of course, I am the smartest and best looking out of all of us. That is why I run a kayak shop. Ha!) Anyway, I am forwarding an email from number 3 (it is easier than trying to remember all my siblings names).

Nancy, my second oldest sister, has her heart in the right place (sadly, it is her brain that is a little mispositioned — Kidding Nance!). She is sharp as a tac (a tic tac), and over the years, has been fortunate enough to have tricked many a big business into paying her an obscenely large salary ($6.15 an hour at the quickie mart).

Recently during a round of downsizing in the telecommunications world she traded in the big bucks as well as the rollover minutes and took a job doing something that really fit her mission in life. Kudos to her for not only following her heart, but doing something nice for the world in the process. She went to work for a nonprofit spay and neuter clinic that allows low cost pet surgeries for low income families. (I told you that fake resume would eventually catch up with you, Nancy!) So, if your housecat needs a teet reduction on the cheap…. Nah, not those kind of surgeries!

Anyway, I myself don’t particularly care for cats, (hence the reason I am passing along the email about getting them fixed… Again, I am kidding Nancy!) but am so impressed by what she does that I am passing this along. She did not ask me to do so (otherwise I surely would have refused!!!) The real reason I am forwarding this is to prove that I am actually normal compared to the rest of my sibling, not to mention to build some good karma for that day I need her to post my homeless kayak guide will work for food announcement.

Here it is: (and don’t tell number 3 we were talking nice about her. Being nice to each other is strictly forbidden in our family!)

SPAY IT FORWARD!!!

Here’s how it works:

You purchase a Spay It Forward card (hereby referred to as SIF) for $35. You can choose to either personally give the card to someone you know who qualifies for the SPOT Clinic services (total family income less than $35K), or you donate the card to the clinic to use for a client as needed. The SIF card entitles the qualifying recipient to a dog or cat spay or neuter, vaccinations, Frontline, and dewormer at the SPOT Clinic.

The regular SPOT prices of $25 and $35 can really be a hardship for some of our clients, but they love their pets as much as you and I do. When the choice is to either put gas in the car to get to work that week, or have Fluffy neutered, Fluffy doesn’t stand a chance. We hear stories everyday that make us grateful for our fortunes in life – though they may not be much. At least once a day, a client tells us that they can’t keep the pet inside the air-conditioned house, because they don’t have any AC. Can you imagine?!? Some live in a bus, others in a tent, and the more fortunate ones have one room that they rent. Not one bedroom, but one room. Shared with a family and the family pets.

Why do these people have pets? Most of them have taken in a stray. Maybe they could relate to the living creature that wanted nothing more than a little food and love. When they can’t afford to have their stray spayed or neutered, then they end up with lots more mouths to feed.

We can help. You can help. For about the cost of your coffee addiction for a week, you can Spay It Forward for someone’s beloved pet. Your SIF may be the one and only time this pet gets any medical attention – and what could be more important than spaying and neutering?

For additional information about the SPOT Clinic or to make an online donation, visit our website at www.vawokc.org. Donations can also be mailed to: Volunteers for Animal Welfare P.O. Box 20061 Oklahoma City , OK 73156

Please specify that the donations are to Spay It Forward (and tell them OKC Kayak sent you), and whether you would like the card donated to the clinic or to hand out personally.

From the bottom of my heart and for everything you do, thank you!

- nancy

neuter recruiter

Yeah, Yeah, Dave has been slacking. Most of you have probably noticed that the website tattle-tales on me when I have not been regularly updating my blog. I guess this is a small price to pay for turning the website design and upkeep to a friend. Needless to say, we have been a might bit busy lately. Here is a quick update on the new shop:

The refurbishing of the building is taking shape nicely despite kayak camps, lessons, trips and all the other craziness we have going on this time of the year. Nearly sixty hours of pressure washing was needed to remove the peeling stucco from the front of the building. Two nights of sign painting until 4:30 in the a.m. got the outside looking a bit better, too. (We had to project the lettering on the building at night with our digital projector.)

A lot of our nice friends have been kind enough to donate time, equipment and materials to the shop. A special thanks to West Marine for donating many store fixtures. Dave and Barb Brinker spent part of their vacation trip hauling boats across the country for us (We appreciate this!). Delilah Smith helped dumpster dive (watch for the blog about this coming soon!) And, thank you to Tom and Doris Stone for lots more fixtures, desks, a computer server, and a printer which Tom even came out and installed. I guess I will have to start being nicer to them. On that note, we are trying to do as much with recycled materials as possible. (Hint…. if you have building materials, store fixtures, an old microwave, etc., let’s talk.)

For the most part we have the store staffed from 10-6 Tuesday through Saturday and after hours by appointment. Expect to meet our new coworkers on the website real soon. In the meantime, again thank you to all those that continue to bless my life with your continued friendship and support. Regards, Dave Lindo

I had just wrapped up my on camera interview with the producer when my older (and most helpful) brother informed me that I had some broccoli in my teeth. Next, I was thinking he was going to tell me that my zipper was down or something, despite the fact that my swimsuit does not have any zippers. That is my family for you! We are a bunch of sarcastic antagonists with a somewhat dry sense of humor. Luckily, I was able to explain away my brother’s lack of tact by informing the producer that he was adopted. We got him from the rescue shelter back when they had the free spay/neuter special. (Good thing it was free, because Paul is working on kid number three.)

Speaking of families, the gal from Discover Oklahoma brought her own crew along. Her husband Kurt was the cameraman and her two daughters Prairie Kay and Cricket came out as well. She also brought out her friend John, who happened to lack the ability to use any of his body from the waist down.

I too would have a guest of my own tonight, Miss Peanut Jones. Peanut, as you faithful readers may remember, is our nearly 102 year old kayaker from Mustang Oklahoma (See blog entitled: Kayak Guide Sprinkles Ants on Cotton Candy Booth). Needless to say, Peanut was as excited as we were to be out in front of the camera. I must say, she got a little ahead of herself with the whole fame thing, as she showed up with new spinners on the wheels of her ‘82 Dodge Toronado, Grillz for her teeth, and a propeller atop her ballcap. You go Peanut!

Peanut was the first one to be interviewed since we only were able to get the judge to grant us a brief window of time as an exception to her house arrest. (Not really!) Let me be the first to say that some of Peanut’s responses to the interviewer’s questions quite surprised me. For example, when asked about why she wanted to be out for this events she said, “My doctor says that I need to gain some weight, and I had always heard that the camera adds twenty pounds.” What!!!! Then Peanut fessed up to the fact that she never had actually kayaked before, short of sitting in one in an asphalt parking lot. Thanks a lot Peanut, and I thought we had fooled her due to her cataracts on her eyes. “Well Peanut, you are going to get in a kayak today, aren’t you?” the producer queried. “Oh, no,” her immediate reply. It would take a promise of three cans of Ensure Plus, a bottle of number nine purple hair dye, two bowls of green bean and jello salad, and a new shuffleboard table to bribe this old gal to get in a boat with me. Even my brother Paul has an easier time getting a woman to go out on a date with him. She finally reluctantly agreed, so I responded in kind by returning her SAS shoes and walker that I had hidden from her.

We put Peanut in a tandem boat with me. Peanut would paddle in front, the driver’s seat. We kayaked all around, Peanut’s Grillz blinding the cameraman every time she smiled. I offered up a compliment to Peanut for the great job she was doing. She then accused me of doing all the work. Well, I can fix that. Yes Ma’am. Unbenounced to her, I honestly quit paddling all together. She was none-the-wiser because she was facing forward with her back to me. I held my finger to my lips, indicating to the laughing bystanders that they were not to tell. SHHHHHH!!!!!! Finally she asked if I was helping, to which I indicated that I was, while still laying on my back with the paddle behind my head. Peanut and I made it back to shore alive, but boy was she pooped. We sent her on her way after having her sign an addendum to the waiver promising that she would not turn us in to the nearest ombudsman.

John would be the next person to be subject to my antics. We outfitted his boat with some additional padding, and foam supports and pushed him off. His anxious wife asked how long we would be out on the water. “Thirty minutes,” I replied. As it turned out, John was on the water for nearly three hours. As he explained in his interview afterward, for the first time in a long time, he felt just like everyone else with his newfound mobility, absent the wheelchair or any other obvious signs of his disability. What an amazing experience it was to see this man’s happiness and excitement over the opportunities the kayak provided him.

The producer’s youngest daughter (5 years old) was our next solo boater of the evening. Unbelievably, she paddled around and steered the boat like she had done this her entire life. Mom and dad enjoyed the boat equally well.

Now, lest you think that I am going to give away the whole story. Watch for yourself on Saturday, July 12th on CBS in Oklahoma City or your local Discover Oklahoma station statewide.

Many thanks to Discover Oklahoma, producer Shel Wagner, cameraman Kurt Wagner, kiddos, Prairie Kay and Cricket, John and Charla Enns (sp?), Peanut Jones and her handlers, the Enteshary Family, as well as the entire OKC Kayak Family that came out to participate. Meanwhile, I am off to find out where Peanut bought her hat with the propeller on it.

A serious post for a change (a little off topic):

I own a television or two, yet rarely turn the thing on.  Probably because at last check there was a mountain of kayaks stacked in front of it, preventing me from viewing it or much less getting close enough to turn it on.  On the rare instance that I do watch television, it is usually to catch the ten p.m. newscast or to watch some sort of news documentary.  It would be fair to call me a news junkie, I suppose. 

Lately, I get most of my news through whatever headlining blip crosses the home page of my internet provider.  This week brought news of a death that I found to be quite unbelievable and saddening,  NBC’s Meet the Press moderator, Tim Russert.  Quite frankly, I found this loss to be more tragic than most any big name person that has passed in recent years, including Princess Diana.

Time after time in this current election season, I touted to my friends the case for someone like Mr. Russert to lead our great country.  He struck me as not only a compassionate and intelligent individual, but a fair and balanced man as well.  Fair and balanced, isn’t that what we need in this eclectic and diverse melting pot that we call our world?  Tim seemed unique if not unorthodox in the fact that never did he let on to any personal biases or beliefs, much less let this interfere with his work.  Can we all say the same for ourselves?  I know that I cannot always do this.  Imagine if we all were to try.  Imagine if for one week we all worked to understand and respect another’s viewpoint, even if it is not, and maybe never will be our own. 

I believe that Tim Russert rose to the top not because he possessed dashing looks, money, or any of the other qualities we often tend to idolize above the more important things like integrity and character.  He got there because he respected the fact that there was always more than one side to every story.  Why was Tim honored, respected, and remembered by politicians across party lines, religious icons, and the common man?  I believe that this is because he was fair, albeit tough, on his guests no matter Democrat or Republican, Catholic or agnostic, or whatever else. 

You never saw Tim pander to a guest for the sake of being politically correct, or to earn brownie points either.  Maybe myself and others can try to do a better job in this regard as well.  Maybe we will agree to disagree more often for the sake of friendships and fellowship and a more united community and world.  Maybe it is time we break from the norm and offer up acceptance, even when it might not be the popular opinion amongst our peers. 

Who knows, you as an individual might make a big difference in this world.  I know Tim did.