{"id":7373,"date":"2009-04-14T15:07:57","date_gmt":"2009-04-14T22:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/?p=7373"},"modified":"2009-04-14T15:17:42","modified_gmt":"2009-04-14T22:17:42","slug":"photojournalist-gets-back-on-his-knees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/?p=7373","title":{"rendered":"Photojournalist Gets Back On His Knees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/kneeboarder.jpg\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/kneeboarder.jpg','popup','width=238,height=286,scrollbars=no,resizable=yes,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=yes,left=0,top=0');return false\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/kneeboarder-tm.jpg\" height=\"240\" width=\"200\" border=\"1\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" alt=\"Kneeboarder\" \/><\/a>As surprised as we were to discover that there is a <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kneeboardsurfingworldtitles.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">World Championships of Kneeboarding<\/a><\/strong>, the story of 49-year-old photojournalist <strong>Michael Fernandez<\/strong> was even better. According to a story in the <strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stuff.co.nz\/taranaki-daily-news\/news\/2334942\/Surfer-drawn-to-worlds-hot-spots\" target=\"_blank\">Taranaki Daily News<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, Fernandez was the 1981 American Kneeboard Champion until school, a trip through the armed forces, and a career as a photojournalist ended that for a while.<\/p>\n<p>Now, 25 years later Michael is in New Zealand competing for the American team at the World Championships and hoping to travel to Afghanistan for his next assignment.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>He got back into the waves four years ago and is now part of the nearly 20-strong team of Americans competing at the World Kneeboard Surfing Champs in Opunake this week. . . .A resident of the landlocked state of Pennsylvania, achieving happiness is as simple as surfing twice a month, though that is easier said than done. . . .&#8221;It takes me three hours to get to the coast. Depending on the weather I surf at New York, New Jersey or Maryland.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Apparently, the depth of talent in kneeboarding is such that someone can take 25 years off and still be competitive. Either than or Fernandez is one savage kneeler.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Link: <\/strong><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stuff.co.nz\/taranaki-daily-news\/news\/2334942\/Surfer-drawn-to-worlds-hot-spots\" target=\"_blank\">Taranaki Daily News<\/a><\/strong><strong>]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As surprised as we were to discover that there is a World Championships of Kneeboarding, the story of 49-year-old photojournalist Michael Fernandez was even better. According to a story in the Taranaki Daily News, Fernandez was the 1981 American Kneeboard Champion until school, a trip through the armed forces, and a career as a photojournalist [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7373"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7373"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7375,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7373\/revisions\/7375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}