hawkeye Sports and Entertainment

Chicken Momma!

The Flying Docs arrived last night at the hotel from Alberta, Canada and just left for the countryside.  Good to know there is medical assistance should it be needed!

Ran to the Christ statue on the top of the mountain overlooking the harbor.  Was running on the beach and met Kathy again.  Kathy owns the t-shirt shop and is from Newport Beach, CA.  She was running with her four dogs, and get this, a parrot perched (maybe it was a cockatiel) on her left hand.  I had to stop and ask (and get a photo too).  She explained she has been running with her bird perched on her hand for 12 years.  You have to love it. 

Made it up the Christ Statue (think Rio, just not out stretched hands) overlooking the bay.  Encountered the locked gate and was in the process of “hopping the fence” when the dog started barking.  She was barking from atop the platform down at me and I quickly figured I wasn’t about to “sweet girl” her and win her over.  Oh well, I got within 25 feet of the absolute top!

Came back and rousted the boys from bed for breakfast before we went out surfing again today.  We had the best breakfast this morning.  A local fried cheese, fried plantains, eggs, tortillas and rice & beans.  The cheese was so incredibly tangy and balanced by the sweet fried banana…the best.  Mike called it “typico” – sampling of the typical Nicaraguan breakfast.

Tony picked us up at the hotel and we left for the marina.  The marina is an interesting story.  I can’t figure out why the security there is so “high” but more about that in a minute. 

The port was built by the Japanese (Shimatsu Corporation) along with a hospital somewhere toward Managua. The local garbage trucks and some of the municipal vehicles have Japanese flags on them.  Turns out, the Japanese fishing fleet “purchased rights” to fish off of Nicaragua about ten years ago.  There is an odd tension here and the words “raped the ocean” and “they took everything, even minnows” come up a lot.  The fleet apparently “swept” the Pacific Ocean out to the end of the shelf – 25 miles.  The fishing and the sport fishing community is just now beginning to recover.  I guess the local port was part of the re-payment.

Every morning Tom has to leave his passport at the fenced gate where a security officer exits the gate house and meets him and then opens the gate for us to enter.  By the dock, where we meet the boat there are at least two more security officers and one to two guys dressed in blue/brown camo paramilitary suits with side arms and dark sunglasses.  They see us off in the morning and are always there to greet us when we return.  Not friendly guys.

We went to Playa Yankee this morning and no action.  Pulled up anchor and went back to Playa Hermosa.  Smaller today and absolutely perfect for me on a long board.  Many great rides in, long rides, all the way into shore and stepping off into a foot of water.  The only problem with those rides is, you have to paddle all the way back out!  On my third or fourth ride in, I actually startled a stingray in about two feet of water and he/she flopped over the nose of the board.  The water is so clear and when you’re riding in, it’s like flying over the bottom of the ocean, it’s so clear and you’re going so fast over the bottom.  What the heck, I’m already here, so time for a long walk on the beach and rest up right?  Today’s surprise? 

Well actually it was on the steps leading up to the Christ Statue this morning- a beautiful, brilliant orange and purple female fiddler crab. She finally let me photograph here.  Very, very colorful.

On the beach today I found purple butterfly winged bivalves.  Pink two days ago, purple today.  At the “top” of the sand, as it transitions into the dry jungle, are these incredible trees that grow to the ground, yet you can walk “into them” – under the network of branches.  They are like little private rooms on the beach, shaded, yet letting in the most incredible light with spectacular views out to the Pacific.  Private, but completely open – like a natural cabana.

We surfed for another couple of hours and then came to the boat to eat lunch.  Mike made killer tortillas - chicken salad with pistachio nuts and apples.  As we were finishing lunch, a rain squall blew in over the mountains and soaked us on the boat in spite of the bimini and make shift shelter built with board covers.  It passed in about 20 minutes, freezing cold during the douse and then the sun was back out.

How cool is this?  The Catholic Church in the Town Square is celebrating mass and broadcasting on loudspeakers throughout the square.  Very, very cool. 

Boys are “power-napping” and I’m on the front porch of Hotel Isabella writing and enjoying a rones and coke.  The rum, Flora de Cana is excellent and quite cheap.  Cheaper than the Coke actually!

Dinner tonight?  Chicken Momma.  On the west side of the town square.  She was barbecuing in the street.  The little boy in the picture said she was Numero Uno, come back in 20 minutes.  We walked around town and then went back.  Our Spanish was awful, but with the help of one the hotel guys who happened to be in there, we ordered: beef, rice & beans, fresh tortillas, fried plantains and some kind of chili cole slaw – one of the best meals ever – we ate in the front of her house.  Very, very cool with an almost full moon rising over the church.

After dinner we walked to the beach and encountered a baseball game on the sidewalk with these little guys throwing a wad of paper as their baseball.  Baseball is a religion here we were told.  They were so cute and so happy!

Insert Clichéd New Years Resolutions Title Here

Who’s excited about writing the wrong year at the end of the date for the next couple of weeks?  Typically this is looked upon as completely unacceptable, especially when signing and dating just about any contract, but in my humble opinion everybody should get a little leniency until about mid-January.  After about the fifteenth if you’re still writing “08” instead of “09” we need to talk about the importance of living in the here and now. 

 

So what’s on the agenda for the New Year?  Before we get to the stroke of midnight, or by my guess, through with lunch today, we will have all reflected on our pitfalls of 2008.  I wish I had lost more weight.  I wish I had gotten more organized.  I wish I had won the lottery.  I wish… I wish… I wish.  Well you know what? Stop wishing and start resolving because with the exception of winning the lottery you are in control of your own destiny (I apologize for using the word “destiny” there… it’s not really my style, but it fits).

 

As a member of the Active Culture we are doers!  We may catch ourselves sitting and whining every once in a while, but before long we are off our butts resolving our resolutions.  So after you figure out what you’re giving up tomorrow get ready to party like a rock star tonight!  New Years is the new Mardi Gras so get out there and enjoy your last night of conscience free night eating, drinking and being merry no matter what your measure of splurging might be.

 

Fast forward for a minute to tomorrow.  How and the hell am I going to keep this resolution I made three drinks into the night?  First and foremost, let’s cross our fingers that you didn’t go overboard with the resolution.  Now let’s see what advice we can come up with to help you succeed.

 

Top 5 Tips for Keeping Your Resolution:

 

Tip #1 – Dieting falls atop the list of many healthy active consumers.  Rather it’s losing 5lbs or 25lbs there are a few simple things you can do to help yourself reach your goal.  There’s no such thing as a quick fix that works, so just commit yourself to the buddy system.  Find someone who is looking to accomplish the same goals and team up. It’s that or shell out the bucks to join a gym because spending money will almost certainly make you guilty enough to go get a little daily exercise.

 

Tip #2 – Stop smoking!  I’ve discovered that the New Years resolution to stop smoking is an important one for many people, especially if they are interested in joining the ranks of the active culture.  It’s very simple… smoking kills you, it kills me, it kills baby seals and its bad for the environment.  If that’s not incentive enough to stop smoking, try eating your cigarettes instead of smoking them*.

 

*I don’t advise anyone to actually eat their cigarettes, despite the fact that it would be doing us non-smokers a favor

 

Tip #3 – I’ve heard it time and time again that more people would like to start reading the newspaper.  The most important piece of advice I can give here is to SUBSCRIBE.

 

Tip #4 – Everybody likes having more money, but no one likes saving it.  Well oddly enough that’s another popular resolution.  How does one save more money?  The best thing you can do to save more money is to start a savings account.  Once you have started a savings account, or if you already have one, evaluate your monthly income and create a budget.  Find the category in your budget where you feel you are spending too much money and take a portion of that amount and put it in that brand new savings account.

 

Tip #5 – My final piece of advice for 2008 to make you healthier, wealthier and wiser in 2009… Get out there and get active!  Joining the ranks of the Active Culture will not only help you to get healthier, but it will also teach you priceless information about who you are, which in turn makes you just a little bit wiser; and a little more wisdom never hurt anyone’s chances of becoming wealthier.

Because everyone’s resolutions are different don’t hesitate to write in with what you plan to change, lose or save this year.  Also feel free to add any advice you’ve picked up along the way, or ask for some, to keep that resolution rolling.

Race or Rally?

After running in a 7,000+ person road race on Thanksgiving, I was checking my time/result and it occurred to me that much of the field really weren't there to race.  Then exactly what were they there to do?

Finishing the distance, time-trialing, getting a great workout, justifying a lot of turkey and pie, have fun….all fine missions.  The reality is that it's not racing. Grassroots running has mostly evolved into a giant fun run.

Grassroots cycling certainly does it differently.  Bike races clearly difference
themselves from organized rides or events.  Those racing bicycles
are truly competing against one another and have impact upon each other
while on course.  The races are primarily broken out by experience based categories which aim to put people up against others with like ability.  Sure this system has its flaws but it does a much better job than basing things only on age and sex.  For those that find this too hard-core or complicated, there are “open” rally rides.  These can be plenty hard and by some ridden as races (very true here in Texas).  But no matter the games at the front, these are not races.  

The organizers of the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon series are separating their
Elite (or, amateur racers) from the Pro ranks and the traditional age group methodology.  If the analogy works, age group = rally rider.  For those that are serious and fast enough to be racing, but not quite professional, this category allows them to mix it up with others there to race.  The age
group division has become a much friendlier point of entry to the sport and the experience those less competitive seek.

When the abilities within an Open class get to be as wide and varied as in running, are age-based categories still appropriate?

Should running adopt some kind of staggered competition levels?  Some might
say that it’s not broken, so don’t mess with it.  Growth in running
events continues, especially within the half and ultra marathon distances. And maybe the unstructured come-all, Open way of holding races/events is partly why the Active Culture participates within running events in such dramatic numbers.  From the view of someone that likes to compete and race in
various disciplines of self-propelled sports, it’s easy enough to turn to
other options that have a system for managing true races.  Running can stay
a rally and we will just have to wonder if we finished ahead or behind the
guys and girls that were there to race…or to finish.

Who wants ice cream?!?

Hawkeye Sports & Entertainment (HSE) is going vanilla!!! Why vanilla you ask? Why the most boring of 32 Baskin and Robbins ice cream flavors? Why not Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Apple Pie a la Mode, Peppermint, or even Egg Nog? (All of which just happen to be Baskin and Robbins flavors of the month.)  I’ll tell you why.  That why is that I don’t really like sweets.  Vanilla is about the only ice cream I truly enjoy on a regular bases. However, on a very rare occasion I enjoy a good waffle cone, Reese’s peanut butter cup blended, gummy bear and colored sprinkles topped Vanilla, and that ladies and gentlemen is the type of Vanilla I’m talking about!

The trick about eating such an overwhelmingly delicious treat is how you go about devouring this uncommon vanilla delicacy.  You might believe yourself in the minority of ice cream eaters, but as the official spokesperson for HSE I can tell you that this is just not true. There are two parts that you will find aren’t true.

Part #1 - I’m not technically the official spokesperson for HSE.  I wasn’t elected by a group of my peers, or called by some higher power… truthfully, it just kind of fell into my lap.  So with that in mind, you can call me the semi-unofficial spokesperson for HSE, or not.

Part #2 – There are more of us uncommon ice cream eaters out there than they’ll lead you to believe. By “They,” I mean everyone else out there in pursuit of the everyday common ice creams, which probably weren’t on the flavors of the month list… Egg Nog? Seriously?

Here at HSE we can be your guides to the uncommon.  We are an office full of super sweet, creative, bad mother shut your mouth, employees who live what we do.  Our office is made up of people who have an uncommon approach to life, with uncommon passions, coming from uncommon choices.  So next time you’re thinking of ordering up another mundane small cup of chocolate ice cream… see us first.  We can teach the proper way to order some vanilla!

What kind of ice cream are you looking for?  I don’t want you to write in with some crazy concoction that nobody has, or will ever, eat… but I do want to know the personal flair you add to your mid-morning / for lunch / after lunch / snack time / dinner / after dinner treat! So what’s your favorite ice cream?

Newest addition to the active culture...

It’s never too early to begin the active lifestyle!  Hudson Merrill Squires was recently spotted on the beach in Santa Monica with dad.  Was he tuning up for a future Tour of California ride or just enjoying the sights?  Matters not, he was just soaking up the active culture lifestyle at its best.  Hudson Rocks!

Last Minute Marathon

I have a few experiences in my life that I would consider extremely tough, character building moments.  To highlight a few, I endured an eight month pledge ship for a fraternity that caused me to shed 30 pounds in the first month alone.  That was tough.  I rode an emotional roller coaster in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina, awaking to a pine tree crashing through my roof at 9:00am; mind you the eye of the hurricane, the deadliest part of the storm, didn’t even hit our house until 1:00pm that afternoon.  Three days and three destroyed chainsaw blades later, I was finally able to clear a path down the driveway to get the one “non-crushed” vehicle in our driveway access to the street.  That was tough.  My first experience with The Squires Group (now Hawkeye Sports & Entertainment, referred to as HSE from here on out) had me producing, traveling and executing a 50 marathon tour, in all 50 states, in 50 consecutive days for world renowned The North Face endurance athlete Dean Karnazes.  I recall a seven to eight state consecutive stretch where 2 hours of sleep would be the most I’d get each night, if that.  I rode in the support vehicle every day, for four hours a day, at 5 miles per hour.  Cabin fever set in to the point that I hopped out of the car at the halfway point of event number 34 in New Hampshire and ran my first “off the couch half marathon” with Dean.  That was tough.  On Friday, April 25th 2008, I believe I may have topped them all.   

SKIING; Winning a Prize for Best Fall. It's All for Charity.

Steve Dapper, a 46-year-old advertising executive from Bronxville, N.Y., has been a recreational skier for most of his life. But earlier this month, he decided to take the plunge into ski racing -- albeit for a single charity event -- and survived despite it all.

"About halfway down the hill, all I know is that I was looking down, and I saw my right ski go over the tip of my left ski," Dapper said. "I remember flying into a heap of powder. I crawled out, put my skis back on, and kept going. My pride was a little hurt, but it was fun. I won the prize for the best fall." A 28-Stop Express

The team event was staged at Stratton Mountain, a Vermont ski resort that is one of 28 stops on the Jimmie Heuga Ski Express. A recreational racing series, the Heuga is intended to raise money nationally for people with multiple sclerosis. The Stratton Mountain event brought in $86,000.

The competition required that Dapper and his two teammates ski down an intermediate slope as many times as they could in four hours. In the afternoon, Dapper raced down a dual-slalom course, matching his time to another skier's.

Dapper was able to claim 31 descents in the marathon part of the event to 40 trips by the winner. But in the slalom, Dapper said he lost to "a kid who was down having lunch before I finished the course."

Biggest Winner

hse has undertaken a 3-month internal competition of its own. Coming off another winter, the staff has challenged one another to its own version of the popular Biggest Loser type contest.

Through a random draw teams comprised of one male and one female have been set. Body fat measurements have been taken and individual goals of personal achievement have been set.

To keep things healthy and sustainable, the winning team will be the one that realizes the greatest loss of body fat. To keep things fair for both the thick and thin, this loss will simply be measured as a percentage of the percentage of fat lost.

The goals are varied but all are impressive and fueled by peer pressure. The prize for the winning team? Personal achievement, ever important bragging rights and rumor has it that there may be some other universally accepted incentive.

My personal quest has led me to read:

The China Study (Colin and Thomas Campbell)

and

The Food Revolution (John Robbins)

-Simon

Website Launch

There's more to hawkeye than just Sports & Entertainment; take a look at our company's new website.

Announcing hawkeye Sports & Entertainment

Dallas, TX – Six years ago, I decided to break away from Sports Illustrated and the greatest job I had ever known.  In my 14 years at the magazine, I had seen it all – Olympic Games all over the world, more Super Bowls, Final Fours and Masters than any one person should be allowed to see and, yes, the infamous SI Swimsuit tours.  We also built an award-winning and industry-leading sports marketing business and launched the magazine in 40 countries, so success was a part of the fun.

So, why would a sane man leave all of that to get into the agency business? For me, it was simple; first, it was time.  Some of you will understand what that means. Second, I had seen it all and knew something was really missing in the agency world, especially the sports marketing space.

I tried to partner with some emerging agencies before deciding it was time to build it myself.  Everyone was doing the same things with the same clients – great people, just not great business.  Times were changing, opportunities were changing, but these agencies were not.  So, you have all of these great companies, brands and platforms investing billions of dollars in the sports and entertainment industry and nobody in “agency land” seemed to be focused on the future, until now.

hawkeye will announce this week the acquisition of my agency, The Squires Group.  I have been fortunate – we committed to an emerging niche in active lifestyle marketing that put us on the map and drew a lot of attention, so we had some cool options.  hawkeye was clearly a different choice – an international marketing services agency committed to technology, data and creative – but it was also clearly the only choice for what I wanted to build.   

hawkeye Sports & Entertainment is that “agency,” focused on clients, solutions and the future in this exciting and challenging industry. We are going to rock the world of sports, music, film, endurance and even philanthropic marketing with client programs that change the industry.

Check it out for yourself.  Our new blog, edge, is designed to become your source for what is happening inside the lifestyle marketing world.

When you want to know the rest of the story, give us a call. – Merrill Squires