Thanks to our wonderful Foam E-Z Employees Johnny “
Next month if we can get over 100 comments and break 1000 page likes then we’ll be throwing in some additional awesomeness for you guys…which translates into more Winners…which means you’ll have a better chance of winning…which means you’ll be happier…which means people might actually like being around you!
Thanks for playing, and remember to check back throughout the month for shop, product, and video updates.
That's right Foam E-Z's Facebook Frenzy for March is live! Here's the rules: As before, we will pick one lucky person to win FOUR (4) FREE Hours ($200 Value) of Shape Lessons or $100 Gift Certificate good for anything at the shop (winners choice). The winner will be announced on Monday April 2nd.
We will be running this promotion the last week of every month through 2012.
Good Luck!
We are proud to announce that the 2nd annual ADLER PADDLER will be back for 2012!
WHEN: MARCH 17th St. Patty’s Day 9am
WHERE: Belmont Shores, Long Beach Ca. (same spot as last year)
WHAT: A FREE 2.8 mile SUP & Prone Paddle Race/ Fun Paddle around Naples Island
WHY: To Remember our good friend Steve Adler and raise funds and awareness for the John Ritter Foundation and the Thoracic Aortic Disease Coalition
The second annual Adler Paddler is Saturday, March 17 – on St. Paddy’s Day - so mark your calendars and come out to support.
Steve Adler passed away at 40 from an undiagnosed thoracic aortic dissection two years ago. The well-known glasser who grew up in the Long Beach area was making strides in the Stand Up Paddle community when he unexpectedly collapsed while working.
Adler has a teenage son, Clark, and Steve’s mom will have a table with baked goods to raise money for his college fund. Proceeds from the paddle and raffle will go to the John Ritter Foundation. Ritter also passed away from a similar condition.
Amy Yasbeck will be at the event and will be signing copies of “WITH LOVE AND LAUGHTER,” about life with her late husband.
All books, raffles, and T-shirt sales proceed are all going directly to the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic health.
The event is a free, 2.8-mile SUP and Prone Paddle Race and fun paddle around Naples Island in Long Beach. It kicks off at 9 a.m.
Last year, nearly 90 dedicated paddlers showed up in strong winds, choppy waters and pouring rain to show support and do the paddle. Nearly $8,000 was raised.
Any questions e-mail info@thesupspot.com, or for more info go to www.PADDLEWITHPURPOSE.COM
Foam E-Z's Facebook Frenzy is underway as of Feb 22! All you have to do to enter is go to our Facebook page and Like Us, then comment on the photo. On Wednesday Feb 29th we will pick one lucky person to win FOUR (4) FREE Hours ($200 Value) of Shape Lessons or $100 Gift Certificate good for anything at the shop (winners choice). This month it's a Caption Contest and here is the photo:
You asked for it, and we listened. Professional Shaping Lessons are now available at Foam E-Z!!! We got Maui Transplant Chris Carrozza to hop in The Shape Box and give one on one lessons. We’ve been doing lessons unofficially for the past 8 months and the response has been awesome from each student. They aren’t for everyone but for those of you ready to get into shaping and need some direction, or for the novice shaper ready to bump their game, then this will benefit you. Check out the video to get a taste and feel free to hit us up with any other questions you may have.
By Brad Nadell:
We here at Foam E-Z love giving thanks. Therefore we want to thank you, our customers, by offering 10% OFF EVERYTHING under our roof on Friday, November 25th. That includes all fin installation kits and power tools…for real. Yes, even resin, and fins…and cloth…yeah, everything! Come on in and take advantage of this one day only deal, we'll be open from 10-4pm.
Thanks again for the support and we hope you have a great Thanksgiving.
I'm sure by now you've all heard that Kelly Slater has won his unprecedented Eleventh World Title at the Rip Curl Pro Search, Somewhere in San Francisco. Kelly locked down the title in the final minutes of the Third Round in classic Slater fashion eliminating Australian Dan Ross. Unbelievable to think but it looked like Kelly was destined this year as he and Owen Wright battled for first and second contest after contest. Ironically Wright had the heat just after Kelly's and had to surf it while Kelly was getting mobbed on the beach.Ironically also Kelly locked down the title on the anniversary of Andy Irons untimely death. After a year of being asked question after question about Irons. Kelly sat dawn and spoke candidly about the life and his relationship with Andy Irons. Here's what Kelly had to say:
I’ve been asked for many opinions and interviews about Andy Irons and the situations and decisions that lead to his early departure from our world. It’s not something I take lightly. I have my own opinions about not only Andy’s choices and how he ultimately got to the place he did, but also about the way these things are handled from all sides of the story. But what is right? And whose opinions actually matter other than those of his family and closest friends about who they knew and how they feel inside? What is it that each of us hopes to take away from the Andy Irons story? And what is it that we want to give to the story of his life?
I dealt, in a strange way, with the death of my own father through Andy. Even though he was 6 years younger, he reminded me of an older brother and for that reason alone we had a heated relationship. We wanted the same thing and knew the other was in the way.
My father passed away in April 2002, and I made shirts with his picture on it. Andy and I weren’t close then so he had no idea, and for the next few months I stumbled around like a zombie tripping out that I would never again see my dad. Andy had just started his roll that year by winning a couple of events and taking the lead on Tour, and I had just gotten back on Tour but found myself not really caring about winning anything except maybe a war of words or a fight with somebody. Andy was just the guy.
I’ll share a story, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll just say this: We got really drunk on a Tavarua trip. We got into a shouting match. I said something about him thinking he’s the man for winning a couple of contests. He screamed and laughed at me, “You’re going baaaalllldddd, hahahaha.” I told him he’d know how I felt when his father passed away, and he started kicking me in the face. (I had earlier punched him in the face in a crazy 10-man wrestling match in a taxi). Then Shane Dorian tackled him and pulled him off me telling him my father had just died a few weeks ago. Andy started crying hysterically and hugging and apologizing to me for the next half hour before he went to bed and then apologized again the next day. In some weird way I think I just wanted him to know that I was hurting because he had a way of just sorta being tough even though he was one of the most sensitive guys in the world. There was just this strange and awkward dynamic between us. Months later, he won his first title and all I could think to do was give him one of the shirts that I had made with a picture of my dad on it and congratulate him. He gave me a hug and thanked me and felt really awkward that I gave him a shirt with a picture of my dad on it. On one level he knew what it was about, and on another level he wasn’t gonna let me put a chink in his armor and wear that damned thing. For all I know, he either burned it or hid it. I’ve often wondered.
The following years have been pretty well documented in our history. Not always correct or spot on, but at other times pretty accurate. The press maybe said some things that we might have thought but never verbalized. I loved and hated the guy, but I probably only hated him because I admired and envied what he was capable of.
A year and a half before he died, at the first event of the year, he told me he was making a documentary about the changes and lessons in his life, and he wanted to help any kids that had ever looked up to him and struggled in their lives, because he now knew what was possible. He was so clear and happy and confident and positive. We stood off away from everyone else and had our first and only real one-on-one, heart-to-heart talk. I actually welled up with tears for how proud I was of him and how insanely unbelievable it was to have Andy look me in the eye and talk straight to me. He told me he had always looked up to me and asked me if I’d work with him on this documentary. He told me he couldn’t believe how amazing life was and discussed with me his fears, his goals, his struggles and his family. It was the true epiphany in Andy’s life: the moment he was open to clean out and shift all the things holding him back from his actual potential as a human being. And that’s the exciting thing: he had so much more ability and knowledge on so many levels. I won heats against Andy at that particular event and the following one at Bells. The only reason I’m sharing that is because both times he smiled and said good job and although he was pissed off at losing, I could see that he was enjoying the process of learning how to accept things, even the things he really hated, like losing…and to me!
The last time I saw Andy was in Portugal a year ago. I was just about to clinch the title, and he saw me at the event and gave me a hug and told me he was really proud of me and that he hoped I would win the title in Puerto Rico and that he was “psyched” for me. I was thinking “Man, if I had only beaten you in Tahiti, this thing would probably be done,” and I sorta mentioned that to him, and we laughed. He gave me a big hug and high five, and I never saw him again.
Two weeks later in Puerto Rico, some people were saying he was sick, and some people said he was partying. Some people said he never left his hotel room. Martin Potter and I were really concerned when he missed his first heat. I just remember them calling his name and his three-man heat surfing without him, and I felt really weird about it. We agreed that we needed to go see him at his hotel and see if he was alright, because there’s no way that he would fly all that way just to miss a heat. Then we were told that a doctor had seen him, and he was sick and resting. I was uneasy about him going missing, but at least it was an update.
When he missed his next heat, and I heard that he had left, I was really worried. I got a call from a friend who was with him in Miami the night before and he asked me why Andy wasn’t staying in Puerto Rico and he told me Andy had caught a flight home thru Dallas. I called Andy’s phone and got no answer. I sent him a couple of texts and got no reply. That was within 30 minutes of when he was found in the hotel in Dallas. About two or three hours later I got the news that he had died. I sat on the beach with a homeless dog and started getting calls from people.
The story of Andy Irons may likely never feel good to us whether you were his friend and you miss him or you have a strong judgment about his shortcomings and it made you angry. No matter what, it doesn’t make sense for someone so gifted and in touch on so many levels to die alone in an airport hotel room nowhere close to anything that mattered to him. But remembering someone can sometimes be about the toughest thing you ever had with them and feeling like your life is better for having experienced that with them. And if that can make you laugh or smile, you’re honoring their life and their legacy, I believe.
I have questioned whether anything in our relationship and battles had any impact on the course of his life or whether I could have made a difference somehow. Maybe that’s just my own form of denial, but one thing is clear, I still can’t believe that Andy is gone. Hell, I still can’t believe that Todd Chesser is gone and Donnie Solomon and Malik Joyeux and a whole bunch of other good friends are gone. An anniversary is best used for remembering the good things and letting it all sink in more so that the sadness fades away and the good memories remain. And if we learn anything from that, let it be that the positive impact of Andy and all our other friends who are gone bring us closer to the ones and the things that we love right here, right now.
I’ll leave you with one last thought of Andy. The other day I was with a friend who had given Andy some rims for his car. In his office, my friend had a signed board from Andy. The autograph was signed, “Picture me Rollin’!” And so I will, buddy.
With love and respect,
Kelly
The first journey (Byron Bay to Bondi, Australia, 2009) successfully highlighted the plight of humpback whales and the threat faced by Japanese whaling fleets.
The second (California, October, 2011) traces the southern migration of the California Grey Whale from Santa Barbara to Baja, Mexico with an emphasis on engaging key coastal community groups and drawing awareness to the causes they support.
Check it out!
If you can make it then head on down. It’s well worth the drive for getting a face full of knowledge from some of the industry leaders and other wacky dudes like Carl Eckstrom, whom they’ll be honoring at this show.
If you've been to the shows in the past then you know we really whoop it up with lot's of giveaways and killer "show special" pricing on our one of kind board building supplies. You might be asking yourself what else will be going on at the show? Here's a short list of some of the bitchen activities:
Custom paint, graphics, drawings, and glassing have always been fun ways to personalize your board. Now you can add Colored Fin Boxes to that list thanks to the magical mystical wizards over at Futures Fins. Besides offering 7 new colors (Red, Neon Orange, Neon Yellow, Lime Green, Blue, Purple, Black), they have also redesigned their boxes to be lighter and stronger bringing fashion and engineering together to make us all cooler than ever. Check our boy Grant starring as "The Fin Connoisseur" in the official Future Fins video release:
