Everything+Extreme

=**A tribute to the most intense people out there**=

**The Entertainment Industry and Adventurers:**
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 * Not many adventurers have handled fame as nicely as Steve Irwin and Jacques Cousteau. Few have led as interesting of a life as Steve Irwin. He was born to family of adventurers. His father was a wildlife expert and his mother a wildlife rehabilitator. They opened a small zoo together when they moved to Queensland. There the young Irwin learned to handle crocodiles at the age of nine. His show the crocodile hunter quickly moved from Australian television to American screens. He quickly became popular for his lively presenting style. He was featured on the Jay Leno show. Throughout his life he kept up his parents zoo after it fell into his hands. He worked with his wife Terri Irwin on many shows and movie, but he also said his focus was on conservation. He wanted to bring the world of animals to people who otherwise wouldn't experience it. This he claimed would get them to try to conserve the wild life around them and get them to love wildlife as he loved wild life. He was also a dedicated family man spending all of his free time with his family. He managed to be a famous, do what he loved and have strong family connections. He tragically died on 4 September. 2006 after being stung by a sting ray while filming some underwater footage. **
 * [[image:http://blogs.monografias.com/sistema-limbico-neurociencias/files/2010/06/jacques-cousteau.jpg width="275" height="241"]]Jacques Cousteau is probably the most famous diver and ocean explorer ever. He is in more than 150 documentaries and has dozens of books. With his famous research vessel Calypso he has led 55 missions all over the globe. Whenever the topic of diving comes up one inevitably thinks of Jacques Cousteau. He is the father of modern diving in more than one way. He not only was a leader in his field, but he helped him immeasurably with his invention of the Aqua Lung. As an avid diver he wasn't happy with the current system which was a tube going from under water back to the surface. This system was extremely dangerous because with the tiniest puncture of the tube the divers life line is cut. He tried to fashion a device that purified oxygen and fed it back to the diver in a constant stream. When Jacques tested his device the oxygen suddenly turned toxic and he almost tied. He was luckily rescued by his crew. Then with the help of Émile Gagnan he built the Aqua Lung which fed a constant stream of air from a compressed tank. His device became the basis of modern day diving. **
 * What amazes me both about these two people is that they both used their fame to try to educate the public about wildlife. They are both truly inspirational people. **

**The Final Frontier:**

 * [[image:http://spacefeelings.com/images/space-heroes-photos-yuri-gagarin-1.jpg width="149" height="250"]]In my blog there has been one very import area of adventure and discovery that I have so far left out. Of course I am speaking of space. Many great adventures have risked it all to go to space, but one in particular gets my praise, Yuri Garagin. He went up into space not knowing what it would be like or anything else. He successfully became the first person to enter outer-space and orbit the earth. He was the first to see the the iconic view of our earth from outer-space. After his voyage he was a super famous figure making appearances around the world promoting the soviet triumph. He rose in the ranks of the soviet army. He went back to the station where he had originally made his voyage into space. He was a trainer there. He was in a fatal accident when a control room operator gave him outdated weather information. Many conspiracy theories have cropped up surrounding his death. In death his legacy has lived on. In Russia tons of commemorative coins have been issued to honor him. He is a huge figure in Russia and all over the world. **

**The Hardcore:**
Dean Potter is possibly the most well rounded adventurer I've ever heard of. He's done almost every activity I've mentioned on this blog. He was an honoree for Adventurer of the Year 2009. He also holds a record for fastest climb of Reticent Wall. His time was 34 hours and 57 minutes. Heres a picture of the imposing cliff: __ [] __. In the past he has come under fire for climbing the Delicate Arch. Despite it being on the Utah license plate and it being in a national park there is no legal reason he shouldn't of climbed it. Recently he has been focusing on wing suit flying. He is an amazing athlete and adventurer. He has pioneered the idea of wearing a compact parachute instead of using ropes in most of the sports he does.  Magellan was the first to circumnavigate the world, but Colin Angus and Julie Wafaei on May 20, 2006 became the first people to ever circumnavigate the globe using only their own strength. They only used their own legs and strong wills. The most impressive part to me is that they rowed across two oceans. From my experience with boats its hard enough to paddle down a little white water, I can't imagine dealing with the monstrous waves in the deep ocean. They got caught right in the middle of hurricane Vince. The swells dragged them to the center of the storm. They had to tie everything they owned down and hunker down inside the body of their boat while the storm passed. They got blown so far of course that they no longer could go in the direction they originally intended and had to make for Costa Rice. Another part that impressed me is that they walked through Siberia. The actually walked through Oymyakon, Russia which is the coldest place in the world inhabited by humans. The weather is known to drop as low as negative 96 degrees Fahrenheit. They also biked through Mexico and all the way up to Canada. These two really inspire me.
 * Some of you may of heard of Aron. He's an adventurer who while hiking in Blue John Canyon got his hand trapped between the canyon face and a boulder which fell from the top of the cliff. He hadn't told anyone of his hiking plans so no one was coming to save him. He spent five days drinking his one bottle of water until he was desperate enough to finally cut his own arm off. [[image:http://environment.research.yale.edu/documents/images/o-u/Ralston.jpg width="282" height="168"]]He was still miles from his car and had to rappel down a 65 foot wall. The reason I chose to write about him is his perseverance. After operations on his arm and a long recovery period he went right back to his goal, to climb every mountain in Colorado over 14,000 feet during winter solo. He eventually completed his goal and became the first person to ever climb every one of the 58 14,000 feet high mountains in Colorado during winter. He also went on to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and he also plans to climb Mt. Everest. He is truly an inspiring man. **
 * [[image:http://c0278592.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/original/350399.jpg]]Dan Osman is a pretty big name in the world of extreme sports. As i mentioned in my previous post he was an amazing rock climber and free soloer. He was featured in a number of films about rock climbing and he brought free soloing to a bigger audience. He was also big in to other extreme sports. He would preform controlled free falls where a rope would catch him after he jumped off a huge cliff. He was also a skilled ice climber. He had one daughter and lived a bohemian life style. He didn't work and would live in a tree house for months at a time. He pretty much did anything he wanted to and had pioneered many extreme sports. He died while doing a controlled free fall. He went to Yosemite National park to take down a jump site that he had set up but decided to jump one last time at the site. A film crew documented his jump. Everything went smoothly. When he got pack up to the jump site he decided to jump one more time without filming it. As he was falling the ropes got entangled and gave way. He fell to his death on the tree covered canyon floor. **

**The Specialists:**

 * media type="youtube" key="84GkmDrk0LI?fs=1" height="385" width="640"Slacklining has become one of my favorite topics of research lately. As i was watching a video of someone slackling it showed the name of the person in the info box on youtube. I decided to look him up to write about him and I discovered something that greatly surprised me. He not only slacklines, but he slacklines on a unicycle. He is also an accomplished trial unicyclist. He rides of road and can do a ton of tricks, the most impressive being that he can balance on a unicycle on a loose rope tied between two trees. He's also a 2010 World High Jump Silver Medallist (20-29 age-group Gold Medalist), 20-29 age group 2010 World Trials Silver medalist and a 20-29 age group 2010 World XC Muni Bronze Medalist. All in all he's a very impressive athlete. What I like a lot about what he does is that it's less of an adrenaline pumping extreme and more of a technically skilled sport. The amount of balance he must have is crazy. **
 * [[image:http://www.fatbmx.com/uploads2/user_Bart/2005_12/wk_50/Rueben_Alcantara___bike.jpg width="207" height="350"]]Ruben Alcantara is a big name in the BMX industry. He was born in Malaga, Spain. He came to the United States in 1997 to meet some of his heroes from BMX and try out some famous riding spots. While he was here he was invited to he X games. He had already been in the states for over a month and was completely out of money. He could choose to fly back to Spain and not attend the X games or stay here with no money. He decided to risk it. He stayed in America for another month and a half waiting for the X games. Apparently Etnies had heard about this rider somehow and decided to sponsor him. They mailed him a new bike, $600 and a ticket to San Diego for the X games. A few months later he started riding for Etnies and everything has worked out great for him. The reason I decided to write about him is his determination. **

I conducted my interview with a student named J.D Nurme. J.D is very skilled at parkour and I've often seen him pull off some awesome flips on the field and during Health and Fitness.

WT: How did you get into parkour? JD: Someone at my old school showed me how to do a side flip and a few other simple tricks and from there i really got into it.

WT: What's your favorite part about parkour? JD: Well I think it's really fun to be able to flip around and it's pretty cool to be able to show off to people.

WT: What would you consider your signature trick? JD: I guess the side flip. It was the first thing I was taught and it's the easiest trick to show people.

WT: Have you thought about going into gymnastics to help you improve? JD: Not really. I like learning new tricks, but doing gymnastics is too much of a time commitment. Parkour is a much more relaxed thing for me. Kind of a weekend thing. I just do tricks when I want to. I am on the diving team and being able to flip really helps.

WT: Who's your favorite extreme athlete? JD: Definetly Bobby Brown. He's a really great freestyle skier.

Here's a video of him if you're interested. media type="youtube" key="AFT4_zoCiCc?fs=1" height="385" width="640"

Sources: www.wikipedia.com www.etnies.com www.nationalgeographic.com www.nndb.com www.cousteau.org http://aronralston.blogspot.com/