Way back in the day when discussing my inspirations for Zombie Ranch I talked about an episode of the show Dirty Jobs where Mike Rowe went to an ostrich farm and was possibly the most terrified for his life he’d ever been in the face of gigantic birds that could have eviscerated him with a single bad-tempered kick. But the farm workers just wrangled them like it was no big deal, to the point it almost seemed like they couldn’t understand why he was being such a scaredy cat. The article that floated onto my social media feeds this week reminded me of that: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/30/607067242/watch-surfer-rides-record-breaking-80-foot-giant And if you don’t want to read that, well, just watch this: Don’t get distracted by the jet ski shooting off to the right, watch that teensy little scratch of a diagonal line near the center. That’s the surfer’s wake ever so briefly scored onto an estimated eighty foot high wave. It’s scary enough to me that there are places on Earth that waves this big happen with enough regularity that to locals they’re merely considered impressive rather than OMFG RUN. But then there are the guys like Rodrigo Koxa who do say OMFG RUN… towards that awesome opportunity! I mean that’s not exactly what happened, no one knew the wave would be that big until it happened, but still there are these guys (and gals) who put themselves out in that roiling megasurf for pride and sport and talk about it afterwards just as casual as you please:

“When I got my wave, I let go of the rope, I started to use my rail to angle towards the shoulder, but then realized, if I used my rail, I’d never get deep. And then I remembered: ‘Go straight down.’ When I said it, I remembered my dream. I turned and I almost fell, but then I got my feet again and went super fast. I’ve never had a big wave like that where I didn’t use the rail at all. Just went straight down. It was amazing.”

What does that have to do with ostrich farms? Well, whether it’s a job or a sport these are folks putting themselves at risk in ways most of us would consider insane, and there’s no superpowers involved but skill, experience, and a mentality that sees opportunity where others see only death. And while not all zombie ranchers might be as enthusiastic as Rodrigo, I think he’d understand their vibe. Catchin’ the wave.