Our L A County Lifeguard Family

Thousands of men, women, and children owe their lives to the Los Angeles County Lifeguards. Made famous by the television show Baywatch, these lifeguards patrol 72 miles of coastline extending from Zuma Beach to the Los Angeles Harbor. Working on some of the world's most scenic and active beaches, Los Angeles County lifeguards protect the safety and lives of more than 50 million visitors each year. For nearly a century they have braved hazardous weather and surf conditions to rescue drowning swimmers, sinking vessels, and downed aircraft in the ocean. As the Lifeguard Operations Unit of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, they make more than 10,000 ocean rescues a year.

Save lives, earn money, stay in shape, and have fun as a lifeguard Lifeguarding For Dummies will give you insight into what it takes to be a lifeguard, and how to train and prepare to be a lifesaver. Lifeguarding is a fun, challenging, and rewarding job that gives you the unique ability to provide your community with a safe place to swim. It also requires quick decision-making and provides you with valuable lifelong skills, such as CPR and first aid, leadership, strong communication, and teamwork. This book walks you through the process of training, preparing for certification, and finding a job as a lifeguard. Good lifeguards are in high demand right now—check out this great job with the help of Dummies. Learn about the essential skills that are needed to become a lifeguard Decide whether lifeguarding is the right job for you Understand the basic types of lifeguarding jobs and how to get certified Try fun swimming workouts to get you prepared for lifeguarding tests This fun book is perfect for anyone who wants to explore the possibility of becoming a lifeguard, gain some basic knowledge and prep for tests, and learn about the lifestyle of the lifeguarding community.

Sharing stories and inspiring lessons on leadership and design, one architect explains how he helped build one of the world’s most successful firms Founded on July 4, 1976, Kohn Pedersen Fox quickly became a darling of the press with groundbreaking buildings such as the headquarters for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in New York, 333 Wacker Drive in Chicago, the Procter & Gamble headquarters in Cincinnati, and the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, DC. By the early 1990s, when most firms in the U.S. were struggling to survive a major recession, KPF was busy with significant buildings in London, Germany, Canada, Japan, Korea, and Indonesia—pioneering a model of global practice that has influenced architecture, design, and creative-services firms ever since. Like any other business, though, KPF has stumbled along the way and wrestled with crises. But through it all, it has remained innovative in an ever-changing field that often favors the newest star on the horizon. Now in its fifth decade, the firm has shaped skylines and cities around the world with iconic buildings such as the World Financial Center in Shanghai, the International Commerce Centre in Hong Kong, the DZ Bank Tower in Frankfurt, the Heron Tower in London, and Hudson Yards in New York. Forthright and engaging, Kohn examines both award-winning achievements and missteps in his 50-year career in architecture. In the process, he shows how his firm, KPF, has helped change the buildings and cities where we live, work, learn, and play. “A must-read for all of those who love cities and the buildings and skylines that define them.” —Stephen M. Ross, chairman and founder of The Related Companies

In this expansive memoir looking back over his fifty-five years of living and working with the hill tribe people of northern Thailand, Richard Mann gives an in-depth account for one of the world's most successful attempts to curb narcotics. As a Christian missionary, and both a project manager and advisor with the United Nations, Mann helped find suitable crops and markets for those crops that could provide a livelihood in place of opium poppy. Feet on the Mountain details life for the hill tribes before modern roads, technology, and infrastructure brought change. Mann shares humorous experiences during his time in Thailand, including living in the "Pink House where the Ghost lives." Feet on the Mountain is an entertaining and enlightening read, reminding readers that the first stop for tackling problems is growing hope.

Surfing has fascinated filmmakers since Thomas Edison shot footage of Waikiki beachboys in 1906. Before the 1950s surf craze, surfing showed up in travelogues or as exotic background for studio features. The arrival of Gidget (1959) on the big screen swept the sport into popular culture, but surfer-filmmakers were already featuring the day's best surfers in self-narrated two-reelers. Hollywood and independent filmmakers have produced about three dozen surf films in the last half-century, including the frothy Beach Party movies, Point Break (1991) and Chasing Mavericks (2012). From Bud Browne's earliest efforts to The Endless Summer (1966), Riding Giants (2004) and today's brilliant videos, over 1,000 surfing movies have celebrated the stoke. This first full-length study of surf movies gives critical attention to hundreds of the most important films.

While writing Soul Surfer Johnny, the first book in this series, I was flooded with so many additional memories of “Puerto Tranquilo” that I knew a second book was waiting to be written. By the time the first book was finished, I had jotted down more than 125 other memorable episodes. I was challenged to write the book that became Soul Surfer Johnny by Joel Fotinos, vice president for spiritual books for Penguin-Putnam publishers, during a lunch we had in 2007. He had just read my Awakening The Soul: The Trilogy, and challenged me to write a novel incorporating the essence of that tome, ala the most successful novel of the millennium, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. While Soul Surfer Johnny is certainly no Da Vinci Code, it does carry forth that essence of spiritual growth, describing a young man’s soul awakening. The heart of the story, however, remains his many wild surfing adventures, most in Puerto. But it wasn’t planned that way. A number of years ago, I began compiling a list of topics for my Puerto book, which I knew I would write some day. But I had no plans of incorporating those memories into the book Fotinos challenged me to write, revealing how to create the spiritual awakening possible within each of us. However, when I started writing, it was immediately apparent where this story was going ... to Puerto, where my personal spiritual awakening occurred some 25 years earlier. Thus, the first Soul Surfer Johnny book had a serious underlying story of spiritual awakening that seemed out of place in a surfing adventure novel. But it really wasn’t, because what was being portrayed as happening to Johnny really had happened to me, and has occurred to others, so I knew it was eminently possible. I had so much fun writing Soul Surfer Johnny that I immediately started writing this book, its direct sequel, but with a difference. This volume does not have that heavy underlying story of spiritual growth, but rather only occasional references to Johnny’s continuing awakening. It’s mostly outrageous tales of his many Puerto adventures and episodes. This book richly continues the adventures of Soul Surfer Johnny, the story of an East Coast bad boy who becomes a good kid as he learns to surf in the waves off Southern California. In the process, he joins his own sort of “gang,” then ventures south to the big waves of Southern Mexico. He is guided to “Puerto Tranquilo” in the late 1970s by several of his fellow Tyrony Bros. “gang” members, who had discovered the fantastic surf break there several years before. There he is witness to and participates in a bizarre series of adventures. Unexpectedly, he begins to explore his spirituality, and discovers his true inner self for the first time, dramatically improving his life. Like its predecessor, this continuing wild tale is almost true, however sometimes the actual circumstances are slightly “enhanced,” while conveying the basic truth. For example, a few wave heights may have been exaggerated occasionally – except in the “Big Wednesday” chapter, which is Johnny’s true, eye-witness account. But most of the book’s stories actually happened as described. It makes no claim toward being all-inclusive, or a legitimate history of the town. It’s just a lot of mostly true stories about a wonderful little town in Southern Mexico. All stories are re-told as accurately as memory serves.