Word: brewer
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...have to wait for the waves. In fact, SUP, which is wildly popular, can be done on lakes, rivers, pools or any sufficiently large body of water. "It's completely blown up in the past five years and every spring it just blows up even more," says Jim Brewer, 45, a painting contractor who, in October 2008 and in spite of everyone calling him nuts, opened Blueline Stand-Up Paddle Surf in Santa Barbara, Calif., the first fully dedicated SUP shop in the country. "We thought it was phasing out, but then we realized that it's just beginning...
Three weeks ago, for instance, while regular surf shops around the country were struggling to stay afloat, Brewer's store sold 16 boards - which start at about $1,500 - in one day. "If I had opened a surf shop eight months ago, we would have been out of business right now, no doubt," he says. Instead, Brewer, who also works as a distributor, fields calls for paddleboards from kayak and surf shops all over the country. "They know that's the only thing they can sell right now," says Brewer, who compares the sport's skyrocketing trajectory to snowboarding, which...
Since then, it's attracted everyone from the "little old lady to the hardcore guys," says Brewer, and become the new favorite sport of celebrities - Julia Roberts recently bought a board at Brewer's shop, joining the paddling ranks of Kate Hudson, Jennifer Aniston, Matthew McConaughey and Lance Armstrong, among others. It's already spawned new manufacturing: the SUP boards are specially designed, longer and wider than traditional boards. Meanwhile, multiple SUP magazines are now being published, races and wave-riding contests are popping up every month, and, as with any new-wave trend, a whole slew of entrepreneurs...
Traditional surfers, meanwhile, aren't always so stoked about the newcomer sport and its practitioners. They see SUPpers as more competition on already overcrowded swells. And many of the the newbies never learned wave-riding etiquette, which involves waiting for your turn and not cutting other surfers off. But Brewer, who grew up surfing and appreciates the concern, says such generalizing is foolish. "We have this saying, 'A kook is a kook,'" he explains. "If he's out there being an idiot on a paddleboard, he's also an idiot on a surfboard...
Faced with an opponent from his home state of Utah, Kenneth Brewer '11 lured his victim to his chosen killing zone by impersonating as a well-known Harvard alumnus from Utah. Brewer called his victim posing as the alumnus and asked her to meet him at Herrell's Ice Cream, a location this person frequents. Arriving early at Herrell's, Brewer watched from a booth as his victim walked to the back of the shop where she awkwardly introduced herself to some other students who she thought was there to meet the same man. Brewer then crept up behind...