Celebrity Interview - Andy Hillstrand from Deadliest Catch

WagNBrag.com Celebrity Q&A - Andy Hillstrand of Deadliest Catch

I imagine that our household is not unique when it comes to our choices in what to watch on TV. My wife and I seldom agree, which means most of the time we’re watching what she wants. There is one big exception to this rule, Tuesday nights at 9pm our television is always tuned to the Discovery Channel as we are completely hooked on the show Deadliest Catch.

Watching these brave men take their lives into their hands on a moment by moment basis in one of the few true reality shows on TV makes for the type of drama only real life can create. So imagine our surprise when we discovered that just a few miles outside of Evansville Indiana one of our favorite captains on the show not only lived, but owns the Hobby Horse Acres ranch.

Andy Hillstrand, co-captain of the F/V Time Bandit, was gracious enough to take some time out of his very busy schedule to answer a few questions for WagNBrag.com. Hillstrand explains what it's like to go from pulling up king crabs in the Bering Sea to training a horse in the Heartland of America.

WNB: It’s quite a transition from a commercial fisherman to a horse trainer, who introduced you to horses and what is the appeal?

Andy: My wife bought two horses one year when I was out fishing. From there on it was just the pure raw power and gentleness of them that hooked me. Like the ocean, they can be calm one minute and explosive the next which is a fun challenge.

WNB: Your family moved from Alaska to Indiana about 5 years ago, how did the animals react to such a drastic change in climate?

Andy: Like me, they have learned to acclimate, but I’m sure they would love to be by the ocean to smell the salt air again.

WNB: Tell me about the horses you have now.
Andy's Horse Rio

Andy: I have two dark brown foundation quarter horses, Rio and Midnight, and one quarter horse appaloosa, Snowflake. One yearling paint filly, Buckshot, and a miniature horse, Morning Star. The foundation quarter horses are five and nine years old. Rio is my favorite and he can be seen on my website. Snowflake and Morning Star are on the website too. We board an assortment of other horses too.

WNB: What about riding centers you?

Andy: It is very basic, but not simple. I have to ride the horse without getting in the way of his natural movement which takes all my emotional and mental concentration as well as my physical balance and fitness. The horse provides an instant source of feedback if I am out of balance physically, emotionally or mentally and he lets me know right away; that keeps me very centered.

WNB: What is Natural Horsemanship?

Andy: Natural Horsemanship is the training of horses and humans using communication, understanding, and psychology rather than fear or intimidation or mechanical means.

WNB: Can you apply the same principles to training and interacting with other animals such as dogs and cats?

Andy: You can apply the same principles, but dogs and cats are predators and horses are prey animals. Dogs and Cats operate off praise, reward, and recognition while horses respond to safety, comfort, and play.

WNB: How long have you been training others in Natural Horsemanship?

Andy: Only about three years on a professional level. I’ve been teaching my wife and daughter and friends for about nine years.

WNB: Is Hobby Horse Acres a family affair?

Andy: Yes the ranch is a family affair; my wife and I. Our daughters are grown and on their own.

WNB: What services do you offer at Hobby Horse Acres?

Andy: We board horses, teach riding lessons, train horses, have day camps, host birthday parties and events.

WNB: Describe a typical (if there is such a thing) day at Hobby Horse Acres.

Andy: Wake up at 6:30 AM, making coffee, letting Cali & Bait out (the dogs), checking my emails, making sure the stable hands and instructors are doing their jobs cleaning stalls and getting prepared for day camp or lessons. Until recently I was the one cleaning the stalls and giving the lessons, but now we have employees to do that so I can work on promoting Time Bandit Productions and all that entails.

WNB: What does the rest of your extended family think about the ranch?

Andy: They love it except my brother Johnathan thinks I am crazy because Superman was killed while horseback riding.

WNB: Where did your affinity for animals develop?

Andy: As a young boy growing up around animals, both wild and tame, it has always been in my blood.

WNB: Do you consider your horses as pets? Do you have any other pets?

Andy: More like friends and partners. I have two dogs and two cats.

WNB: What do the animals in your life do for you?

Andy: They teach me to live in the moment and not to take anything for granted, to have fun, live life, love and shut up and fish!

WNB: What other animals have you cared for in your life?

Andy: Baby bunnies, cats, dogs, birds, pet rodents, pet reptiles; the whole gamete of pets my children had during their childhood. Even had pet squirrels! Saved a baby bunny rabbit off the side of the road and hand fed it until I handed him off to a rabbit rescuer.

WNB: If you had to pick between pulling full pots of crabs or riding off into the sunset, which would it be?

Andy: Who said I can’t have both? Pulling pots is like riding off into the sunset.

WNB: What’s the best way to contact you about lessons or boarding?

Andy: Go to www.hobbyhorseacres.net and click on the email us link

For more information about Andy and his brother Johnathan and their lifelong ambition to catch every crab on the bottom of the Bering Sea, check out their autobiography Time Bandit: Two Brothers, the Bering Sea, and One of the World's Deadliest Jobs or visit their fishing website http://www.timebandit.tv. Also don’t miss Deadliest Catch, Tuesdays at 9pm on the Discovery Channel.

Universal Studios Employee Orientation Video Directed by Matt Stone and Trey Parker

TOP 5 REASONS OBAMA SUPPORTERS SHOULDN'T REST EASY

1. The polls may be wrong. This is an unprecedented election. No one knows how racism may affect what voters tell pollsters—or what they do in the voting booth. And the polls are narrowing anyway. In the last few days, John McCain has gained ground in most national polls, as his campaign has gone even more negative.

2. Dirty tricks. Republicans are already illegally purging voters from the rolls in some states. They're whipping up hysteria over ACORN to justify more challenges to new voters. Misleading flyers about the voting process have started appearing in black neighborhoods. And of course, many counties still use unsecure voting machines.

3. October surprise. In politics, 15 days is a long time. The next McCain smear could dominate the news for a week. There could be a crisis with Iran, or Bin Laden could release another tape, or worse.

4. Those who forget history... In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote after trailing by seven points in the final days of the race. In 1980, Reagan was eight points down in the polls in late October and came back to win. Races can shift—fast!

5. Landslide. Even with Barack Obama in the White House, passing universal health care and a new clean-energy policy is going to be hard. Insurance, drug and oil companies will fight us every step of the way. We need the kind of landslide that will give Barack a huge mandate.

If you agree that we shouldn't rest easy, please sign up to volunteer at your local Obama office by clicking here:

http://pol.moveon.org/obama/office.html?source=blog&id=14534-5214228-RdGZeZx&t=1

XM/Sirius dual tuner units could be 15 years away?

The XM/Sirius merger promised to bring together lots of exciting content to subscribers despite their listening desires, Howard Stern with Opie and Anthony, MLB and NFL, Oprah and Martha Stewart... but the dual tuners could be 15 years away?

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Joe Biden quote

Quote from Joe Biden at a rally in Mesilla, New Mexico:

“We’re going to start with real meaningful tax cuts. I promise you, if you're unlike Joe the Plumber…be nice if he got a license,” said Biden to cheers from the crowd.

“But, Joe the Plumber -- I know you got a lot of plumbers out here making over 250,000 grand,” he said to supporters. “Raise your hands, please.”

At that point, a young man raised his hand, which appeared to be in jest.

“There's a man,” said Biden. “Go borrow money from him, the guy in the green shirt. He makes more than two-fifty. He looks like he's only 18 years old…which means he earned it the hard way. He inherited it.”

Ghost hearts: Reanimating lifeless organs brings new hope

In late 2005, cardiac researcher Doris Taylor revived the dead. She rinsed rat hearts with detergent until the cells washed away and all that remained was a skeleton of tissue translucent as wax paper -- a ghost heart, as Taylor calls it. She injected the scaffold with fresh heart cells from newborn rats. Then she waited.

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Palin, Because We Don’t Need It

Found this on the Portugal. The Man website and felt I should share:

Here is a story from the younger pages of John Gourley (going by Johnny at the time)…

My first hunting trip.

All through my smaller years, from a boy through to a man, I have known true Alaskans. People who hunted for a living. By "a living" I should be sure to mean "for survival" or "as a necessity… Something along those lines… It was just a part of life growing up here in Alaska. People hunt, people work, people live, and fish and sleep and work and work and work and so on.

One of my earliest memories is also one of the most influential lessons of life in my later years. My first hunting trip.

I must have been around 6 or 7 at the time and the setting is Alaskan winter at my childhood home in the small town of Knik. My parents were both dogsled mushers* and we lived in a house powered by generator alone. (*purely out of the adventure and experience. Not necessarily our main form of travel… though there were some points in my life where it became our most available source of transportation.) Our nearest neighbors were a couple of miles away, give or take. This, again, is not needed in this story but only here for you to understand the place in which the story is set… We happened to be sitting in our living room when, outside our massive picture windows, we spot a moose. I will say, to a young boy, this animal was a giant. I can’t honestly tell you in any way how large it actually was, but to my eyes there was and will be nothing bigger. My family and I were sitting around watching it mill about minding its nature and peeling bark from the young birch trees. After a few moments my father turns to me "Hey Johnny, you want to go hunting? You want to go get a moose?” My mind went running. I had never been hunting before. EVERYONE I knew had been hunting and hunted. They had gone out with their fathers and now it was my turn. I nodded my little head and ran to throw on my snowsuit while my dad went to get his gun.

We walked outside in the cold and the snow, him in his bunny boots and winter coat and myself waddling out like a small scale Michelin man to meet our Moose and our dinner for the next few months. I remember the snow being very deep. Realistically, a foot of snow was deep to a small child. For effect and in the spirit of adventure and Alaskan winters I will say it must’ve been the wildest winter I can remember. Meter upon meter of snow. The naked birch trees blending with the white now, leaving little blotches of black and grey at the knots and branches. There was our moose. We had run right into its path. Right where we wanted to be. My father crouches down to my already shrunken size "Are you ready Johnny? Should we get it?" I again nod my head. My father raises the barrel and looks through the scope. We were less than 20 yards away, if that. He pulls his head away from the scope and looks to me again. "Are you sure? Do you want me to shoot it?" This time I am confused. In my mind I am thinking, "Of course I want you to shoot it! We are hunting! This is what we do, isn’t it? My friends have done it and I know you have as well! What are we waiting for?" But again, I nod. The nod was more out of fear of the moose hearing me. Normally I would have spoken my thoughts out loud. At the very least I would have questioned the hesitance. My dad looks through the barrel one last time. He turns off the safety and readies the rifle. He sights the moose and sits there for a moment. All the while I am looking from him to the moose then back to him then back to the moose. I hear the safety come back on and a turn back to see my father lowering the gun and resting it by his side. At this point I am about as confused as a small boy can be. Dad is looking at me and he says, "We’re not going to get it." I ask him why. What he said has stuck with me throughout my entire life. "Because we don’t need it." We simply stood up and walked back to the house, leaving the moose to its dinner of baby birch.

"Because we don’t need it." Possibly the best lesson a man like this could have taught me. He moved up to Alaska in 1970, 2 years after he graduated. He lived in the deep woods in the mountains of Chase. He has run one of the most intense races in the world, The Iditarod, he worked as a potato farmer, lived off of 300$ for an entire year out in these woods… This man is as Alaskan as anyone I know. The lesson he handed to me was a respect of the world we live in. A respect for the animals we live with and the people we deal with. He has traveled around the state working in construction. Building homes for the people and buildings for companies and upon entering these small towns for work always insisted we hire within the community and support their way of life and living, despite what these companies felt to be the most economical. He has handed me so much, all of my family, really.

"Because we don’t need it." My mother, Jennifer Gourley, is much the same. While my father was away working she would take care of our dogs and run the house. She would fix the generator when it would break down. She took us to baseball and hockey and gymnastics. She took on foster kids that needed help. Gave them good meals and a family setting. She volunteered as a firefighter when there were forest fires threatening the areas. When Big Lake and Knik were being evacuated. She has since, in the most recent years become a fire fighter, an ambulance driver, a rescue technician, part of the dive rescue team, and Willows firefighter of the year. She is a part of her community.

"Because we don’t need it" was something that has been taught to me every day of my life through these amazing people and to watch Sarah Palin get so much attention based on what? 2 years as Governor of the State of Alaska? Or is it based on her time as the mayor of Wasilla? The town of 5,000 at the time.

"Because we don’t need it."

We don’t need drilling in some of our most beautiful and untouched land. We need to work towards options. We should be investing and working towards clean fuels. We don’t need to be draining our planet of every last drop before moving on to the next. Sarah Palin disagrees

We needed votes to add the polar bear to the endangered species list. (I know, I know, that polar bear rug would really bring the room together!). Sarah Palin disagreed

We don’t need aerial hunting… Again. We do NOT need this. I don’t know of any true Alaskan that feels it is good sport to shoot an animal from a plane. Sarah Palin disagrees

We don’t need book burners and censors. Sarah Palin pushed to get the librarian of Wasilla fired when certain books were not removed from the public library. Who else in history has banned books? Not very good company is it?

We don’t need more debts. Palin spent 15 million on a new sports center in the valley, leaving the small town of Wasilla, Alaska in debt to the amount of 22 million. (That’s 22 million more than the debt she took on when taking on this lovely playtime as mayor.) 15 million just for a new sports center.

We don’t need family feuds interfering with duties. I know you feel your ex-brother-in-law was a dick… but trying to get him fired based on this may cause a little trouble. Sarah?

We don’t need another vote against gay marriage. This is just standard every day equal rights being overlooked. Sarah Palin disagrees.

We don’t need to overlook global warming. Science can now tell us "Yup. That is happening.” Not my words, that is science speak. Sarah Palin disagrees.

We don’t need a wolf in sheep’s clothing… or a sheep in wolves clothing, depending on how you look at it. She has billed her self as this overly average "hockey mom" and it is just not what I see. I see the sport hunter, the censor, choice taker, the revelations reader, and the high school cheerleader. It is endlessly embarrassing to watch people fall all over this idea. This is not my Alaska. The Alaska I know.

What we do need is love and respect for one another and respect for the world we live in.

The McCain-Palin Mob

Absolutely amazing video that makes me even more ashamed to live in Ohio

$1000 Worth Of Stock 1 Year Later

Vetting John Mccain

Toughest Race On Earth Trailer - Discovery Channel Show

Web Ad for Zack and Miri

Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart

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