Session 100 - June 29 - WC

Sunday June 29, 9:30-12:45, 6'8 Taylor

Woohoo! One hundred surf sessions in 2008! Not too shabby. Ben Franklin would be proud.

Session 100 turned out to be a pretty darn good one, had some south swell in the water and nice calm, glassy conditions. I am learning more and more about what breaks will work on what conditions and swells, and translating what my front yard at the point means in terms of surf elsewhere. My translations are picking up accuracy, although still a lot to be learned. Anyways surf was very good out front, but as expected, very crowded. So I headed out of town a bit.

Good, head high or so waves, some slightly bigger, some slightly smaller. Clean glassy conditions, and a long interval groundswell making for easy paddle outs. A little crowded at the main peak, but I sat a bit south and shared a slightly less consistent and slightly more closed out peak with just a couple guys...a fair enough trade-off in my book. Lefts, rights, and trying to throw myself into closeout barrels, all the makings of a good session #100.

Session 99 - June 28 - Hook

Saturday June 28, 3-5 PM?, KS fish

I don't remember much about this session. I think it was OK but not great. I do remember that I have a pretty solid dent on my new fish though as a result of it, I kneed the deck by the nose pretty hard at some point of kookiness and it put a nice little dent there, didn't seem to crack the glass or anything that's good, good glass job, but a nice dent nonetheless. I noticed it yesterday. Wetsuits are nice for added padding, or I'm sure I would've noticed it earlier due to pain in my knee. Wetsuits and cold water -- you can pretty much kill yourself with bumps and bruises out there in the water and not know it until a few hours later when your session is over and your body has thawed out. I guess that's a good thing.

I don't remember or have much else noteworthy to say about this session so I'll stop now. Oh, yeah, one dude I haven't seen before was absolutely killing it. Probably in his 30's, pretty impressive display of surfing talent. And unlike some guys who rip out there he didn't have a perma-pissed off attitude, didn't take off on every single set wave, didn't paddle around everybody like they didn't exist, didn't blatantly drop in with complete disregard to the mere mortal surfer behind. Nice to see. Thanks dude. Nice surfing, nicer attitude.

Session 98 - June 27 - LM

Friday June 27, 7-9AM, 6'6 quad

Fun session? Frustrating session? It seems like it should have been fun, but, i think in the end I'll have to call this one frustrating...it started out fun enough, pretty small and gutless waves but Ramin was out there with me and there wasn't a mob on it quite yet and we actually each got a lot of little small waves in the first 40 minutes or so, was shaping up to be a good session with the allure of improving conditions as the tide went out a bit more, but...it actually kind of went downhill from there! Ramin caught one real nice racer that looked good, and then after that, it just shut off, and I was shut out waveless for probably a good 30 minutes, which is when the cold shivers set in, and then when sets did come I was either not in position or somehow winding up too far inside so just having to duckdive and paddle...and yeah, more than anything, I just didn't surf all that well this morning! Had some waves lined up that coulda been decent but I for some reason was finding every way possible to kook out on them, falling forward, backward, sideways, every which way you can imagine...oh well, some days you just don't have it! Crazyness I thought I was getting good out there. :) I'm blaming it on the small gutless waves, I only surf overhead barrels! Stupid linda mar!

Haha all things said it is ALWAYS a great start to the morning to be at the beach and get some exercise and a nice cold pacific ocean wake up alarm, and conditions this morning were actually pretty nice, real smooth, no wind, but it was crowded and as you know by now the waves were just really weak. Maybe should've paddled to the north end of the beach -- and joined some of my fellow bloggers who were out in force this morning, Manabu, Ren, Cynthia, the whole crew was on it this AM! Nice work folks...

On to the weekend! There is the potential of good surf on the way, we'll keep our fingers crossed. Have a good Friday....

pro kooks

VIDEO CLIP MANIA!



At first glance, this is just your ordinary run-of-the-mill surf DVD teaser...but then I kept watching it, and every single surfer segment is complete kookiness...in other words...something DIFFERENT! I liked it. Although if they were simply trying to make fun of non-professional surfers like me, I felt a little insulted. Jerks.

skateboard FTW

I'm on a roll with these short video clips lately.


http://view.break.com/525981


Update! And because I can, I'm putting up another video on this post now. Here is a barely visible (should've turned on more lights) attempt at an ollie by none other than yours truly, quite an accomplished skateboarder in my own right.



Video shot by Selin in our upstairs room in Hyderabad India last year. We had to entertain ourselves in some way!

oh herroh

nope, not surfing, nope, not basketball, nope not even BMX...

SOCCER? What is this blog coming to???

Session 97 - June 23 - LM

Monday June 23, 6:45-8PM, 6'6 quad

I was desperate to make this into a surf day. So despite forecasts and pretty much experience and knowledge telling me to the contrary, I packed the car, left the office, and headed west until I could go west no more, final destination Linda Mar, surf situation onshore and sloppy.

But I was there. And it wasn't a Complete wash -- I've surfed out there worse before. Much worse. In fact I was actually able to track down a semi somewhat consistent left breaking a bit north of the bathrooms and so I stayed there and milked it for all I could, sharing it with 2 other guys in the general vicinity. There were maybe 10 or so guys total out across the whole beach. Not really a surf day.

But it was a long Monday at work and I wanted to surf. So that's what I did.

My last wave was actually pretty good, 2 little turns and connected the (very sectiony) outside section with the inside section which walled up pretty nice and allowed me to get some speed and a decent hit off the lip to end it. After that I was good -- could confidently leave and call it a session w/o the nagging thought of maybe there is a better wave out there I really should go back, because, I think that was about as good as it was gonna get.

Surfed the quad better than I have previously. Benefits of going left.

Excite Bike

No surfing OR basketball in this YouTube clip...shocking, right?

This guy is pretty good on his BMX. And he's from Santa Cruz. Fun to watch it and pick out the landmarks.



I came about this video from the following Santa Cruz Sentinel outdoor sports blog.

gettin' earth friendly

West Cliff, 1909

I'm gonna steal a post from a friend's blog, because I thought the pictures were striking and the article linked to is worth reading. The Monterey Bay truly is a phenomenal place to live, an absolutely amazing place full of so much nature and beauty. (And good surf). So I encourage you to read this article. The invasive non-native plant and species bit near the end was especially striking, that is impressive to read that there can be such drastic turnarounds and recovery on those islands, which hold so much of the world's species and biodiversity. Anyways, read the article:

Ocean's Three: Our oceans are in crisis. How three local scientists are turning the tide.

West Cliff, today

Taken from a local SC weekly, Good Times Santa Cruz.

Session 96 - June 22 - Hook

Sunday June 22, 5:30-7:30 PM, 6'8 Taylor

Looking for a repeat of yesterday hit up the same spot, swell had dropped though so couldn't offer up the same goods...still fun. And no driving, pedal power baby! Had a nice day taking it easy, slept in, had some cereal for breakfast w/ some fresh peaches in there too, Selin and I went to the flea market, made a stop at a garage sale on the way, person giving away free old wetsuits so grabbed one of those for the stash (size M ONeill, old but in good condition), a few houses down another garage sale, some sponsored surf gear goodies again on offer (for kids who grew up in this neighborhood, is it some kind of failure if you DON'T get some sort of surf sponsorship? Seems like there's a sponsored surf kid in every other house around here...good for getting surf stuff on the cheap, not so good for getting a wave at 1st peak), got a travel board bag which I hope to put to use very soon and also a rash guard and pair of boardies. The flea market was a real score as well, got a sweet old beach cruiser that got put to use right away this afternoon to ride around town and to the surf, got an electric power sander that also got put to use, got a SUPER SHAMMY magic towel thing, gardening gloves, pineapple shaped wooden bowl, little menehune wood carving man for the yard, a bag of oranges, and yeah a baked potato w/ all the fixins too! We made out like bandits at the flea market, glad that is still around and not replaced with hospital construction (yet). Got home and went for a bike ride, picked up some Moondoggies hot dogs from this dude's bike rig grill, rode around the neighborhood for a while checked some surf and some open houses, bought another rash guard from another neighborhood surf kid who had switched sponsors, came back home, finished almost fixing that darn 8'6 longboard (electric power sanding is amazing), and finally went for a surf. Wow that was quite a day's activity list!

Surf was smaller but still got some OK waves and did a good job working w/ what was there. Small waves aren't easy. Bedtime.

Session 95 - June 21 - Hook

Saturday June 21, 6:30-8:45 PM, 6'8 Taylor

Taking my advice from last post I decided to just stay home! Surf was good so hopped on the bike and rode over to the Hook and went out. Surprisingly not that crowded for how surprisingly good the surf was, managed to catch some real nice waves and even surf some of them halfway decent, pretty solid fun session...no problem catching plenty of waves and generating some speed, such a great wave there really a fun one. Were some guys taking photos w/ their friend in the water w/ a water housing, probably got some good shots. Who knows maybe they even got one of me, cover-shot here I come...

Lucked into position on one real nice set wave, overhead and just racing, stayed in front for a lot of it but in the end it sectioned out on me, but I gave it a real nice run, and got one holler from one dude paddling back out over the shoulder, always appreciated. Good session.

Session 94 - June 21 - Lane

Saturday June 21, 12:30 - 2 PM, 6'8 Taylor

Uninspiring session, not gonna write much. Unless the lane is firing and offering up waves all over the place, I don't do too well in the wavecount category out there. Haven't put in enough time and I don't want to go sit in the gladiator pit and try to get waves w/ all those guys...and somehow I don't think it would be a very successful venture even if I tried...

Anyways when I suited up and decided to get in, there were maybe 10 guys in the water. Within about 20 minutes, that crowd of 10 had ballooned to probably 30...it was like a swarm all descending at once, guys coming from every direction, coming down the stairs, jumping off the first point, jumping off the second point, emerging suddenly from underwater (yeah not really, but can you imagine?)...guess I'm just a trendsetter! So again I didn't want to go sit at the main peak where some pretty solid sets were actually coming through, so took it easy more out by indicators but it got kind of crowded out there too and more guys were linking the section and yeah, I just didn't get a whole lot. Caught a couple, nothing much to get excited about, and called it good. Pretty hungry at that point.

Oh yeah I had also made the drive all the way up to WC area, but it was pretty ugly up there with the wind on it so turned around and drove back.

Should have just stayed home and surfed out front!

Session 93 - June 20 - 38th

Friday June 20, SUMMER SOLSTICE, INTERNATIONAL SURFING DAY, 7-8:30 PM, 9'6 FSC

Summer Solstice! Certainly could not have asked for a nicer day to have as the longest day of the year. It's all downhill from here though! Kind of a bummer. Long days are SWEET.

Since it was also International Surfing day today, I decided what the heck might as well join in and surf myself so we left work around 5 something and headed on over...with these days so long I didn't even have to hurry at all to get a surf in, dilly dallyed around the house for a bit and then headed out. Surf pretty good actually, had some swell all weekend long so got some good waves over the weekend...I surfed the 9'6 on some 38th ave outside set bombs (38th ave bombs, it's all relative) and had fun, got plenty of waves, mixed up some lefts into the mix too.

After the surf came home, ate spaghetti, and Selin and I went and watched this documentary movie 'SurfWise' which was an interesting film. Dude takes his family of 10 or something and puts them all in a 24 foot mobile home and hits the road. All of 'em in that little trailer rig! I recommend watching the movie, it was a good flick, but I don't think I'll be following in their footsteps. I'm thinking 36 foot trailer, at least.

Tivo World Championship Basketball

Exclusive coverage from the Tivo World Championships, held Wednesday July 18 2008.

Starting Lineups:

PG: The Animal
SG: Zac "Handles"
SG: Dr. Nic
SF: The Alaskan Assassin
SF: El Matador
PF: Nelbomber
C: TrevGnar

In front of a packed stadium of one these gladiators battled it out to the finish and the coveted title of Tivo basketball World Champions (for the week).

See you out there next time.

Zac Handles w/ the juke, it IS all about the moves

Yeah that's gonna get swatted we ain't in alaska and that weak shot ain't 'God's Will'

The animal posting up strong

At least 7 foot wingspan

All Ball!!

Teammates? Who needs em?

Just throw it down big man, cmon

no one handed shots (that is pretty close though)

Nelbomber, unstoppable force (not to mention a nice no one handed shot)
sick 'em Animal

And now...the crowning moment...the championship game in it's entirety -- IN VIDEO...

That's right, every spine-tingling second, every electrifying no look pass, every exhilarating sensational rim-rattling pulse thumping play recorded in shaky digital camera video footage for your viewing enjoyment...exclusively available directly to you only on Horacethepig, your official home for Tivo Basketball World Championships coverage.



If you managed to watch more than 40 seconds of that lackluster performance, I commend you. Joel, let us know you're filming next time and we'll step up the INTENSY. (yes I know how to spell intensity. That is a very inside joke that probably nobody reading this will know. We had a character on our HS freshman basketball team named Marlon Mcrae, who while an amiable fellow was not the brightest kid, and one day to pump us up before a game he wrote on the chalkboard in big letters:

"Play with INTENSY
INTENSY
INTENSY
INTENSY
INTENSY!"

so now you know that inside joke. And we did play with a lot of intensy that game. See you next week!)

To view all the photos taken by Joel, go here.

Session 92 - June 17 - LM

Tuesday June 17, 5-7PM, 6'8 Taylor

Had a work offsite this afternoon that took us up to Dunes beach in HMB, where we did a pretty intense beach clean up/non-native plant species full on assault. We pretty much pulled up (non-native, invasive) ice plant until there was no ice plant left to be pulled, pretty impressive, that is a lot of ice plant. Once that was finished around 4 everybody else went back to the office, and I called my own board meeting, and cruised up the road to LM. Looking for a little escape from the wind, which was blowing pretty much everything to slop at Dunes. Jetty looked doable and there were some people out, but opted to keep going as it was pretty tiny...didn't watch long, maybe a longer watch would've had me out surfing there but LM worked out OK as an old standby plan.

I surfed for a while, was nice to get the relatively early-ish start, got some lefts that I tried my best to make work (combination of surfer ability and wave quality)...all in all just another nice, warm, sunny day at the California beach.

Session 91 - June 15 - 38th

Sunday June 15, 2-3:30 PM, 9'6 FSC

My intent on this Sunday day was to go back to yesterday's spot, but I didn't get my act together until too late in the day and didn't have enough time to make the drive and be back over the hill in time for dinner w/ Selin and some friends. So, hard life, I had to just go surf perfect waves in front of my house instead...albeit more crowded perfect waves...can't have it all I guess. Still do OK out there, caught some good ones from far outside, going right is pretty ridiculous w/ the crowds about guaranteed 3-10 dropins, so focused on the lefts (and why wouldn't I, the goofyfoot I am) which were working pretty well, fun waves. Quick shower and on the road and just in time for dinner.

Session 90 - June 14 - WC

Saturday June 14, 3-7:30 PM, 6'8 Taylor

Wow I'm falling way behind on these session reports of late. I dunno maybe that's just inevitable when you've done 90 of them already?? I think so..

This was a pretty amazing surf session. I can use about 5 words to describe it. Glass, glass, glass, glass, and glass. Never had much smoother glassy surf in my recollection. Pretty awesome. Caught a lot of fun, head high or so variety waves with a pretty manageable crowd, and yeah stayed out there for 4.5 hours, which is pretty awesome in its own right.

It was for the most part a kind of greyish overcast day, not the greatest for photos, but...those two while not going to blow you away with any vivid color, should give you the picture about what prompted me to get out the camera for a quick couple of shots before heading home. Pretty tempting to get back in the water I gotta say after watching those, but I was starving. Went home and ate a whole frozen pizza. (I did cook it first.)

Session 89 - June 13 - LM

Friday the 13th (!!!), 7-9 AM, 6'6 quad

Met up Brian from work and got some morning waves before Friday at work. Things had dropped a bit from the night before but was still fun, although waves just didn't have a whole lot of push to em, as again we were hitting it on the high tide...

Caught some waves, the big ones not giving you much to work with, the small ones backing off too much, had to try and find the right mix but conditions were good, glassy, and it was w/o a doubt worth the drive.

Alright i'm going outside! see ya!

Session 88 - June 12 - MT + LM

Thursday June 12, 6-8:30 pm, 6'6 quad

3 day late session reports! Unacceptable!

I just didn't get around to blogging these. Doing them now quickly, as I want to go outside.

On Thurs after work I decided to forsake basketball playoffs and surf instead. Good decision. Although the Celts-Lakers game was (apparently) a collapse/comeback however you want to look at it for the ages, it was a beautiful night and the surf was pretty fun. Started out at MT to kick things off...but it was too high tide and was kind of sloppy and backwashy out there, so I wasn't really feeling it so after maybe an hour I got out and did the in wetsuit drive up to LM...MT is a beautiful beach though the sand is so white! LM was smaller of course but better, combination probably of the tide dropping but just more organized in there. There were also quite a few people out, but that's OK. Except for a few of them (which is a story maybe I'll write when I have more time) the LM crowd is usually pretty mellow.

So caught some fun waves on a warm beautiful night until dark and caught the very end of the hoops game on the radio on the way home. Good way to finish the day.

Session 87 - June 10 - JTY

Tuesday June 10, 7 - 8:45 AM, 6'6 quad

Gonna bang this session report out real quick here, as pretty busy day, but I need a break and that's what this Horace blog is all about...

Wow it is light early! It's also absolutely beautiful weather we're having right now. It makes it all that easier to get out of bed at the crack of daylight when it's already tshirt weather warm outside. I was up at 5:30 and it's already really light. Tomorrow, 5 AM it is. Got up and on the road pretty quick, doing the Mt View to HMB drive this morning, pretty painless, got behind a garbage truck on 92, that was slow, but got to the Jetty and met Ramin who had beat me there. It didn't look great so we drove down a bit further to check one other nearby sometimes spot, but it was worse, so back to the Jetty, good thing too...

As the tide dropped further Jetty got actually really fun. Was a few guys out with us as well and while it was inconsistent for a while, for one stretch of about 20-30 minutes there were some pretty perfect looking wedgy rights peaking up here and there for the fortunate few to be out there. Ramin got some real gems, lookin' good, I'll take credit for hunting down a magic board for him to take his surfing to the next level...that 5'11 fish suits him well, does real good at generating a lot of speed on that thing and speed is the main thing, if you have speed, everything else is easy...

I didn't fare quite as well on the quad, I find that board harder to surf for some reason than my myriad of 6'8's, but I do know when I use it right it can be a pretty sweet ride, I just need to get better at using it. Got a couple waves that were fun, caught a lot of waves, quantity over quality.

Tomorrow morning likely repeat the same scenario, although just a little bit earlier, gotta be at work around 9.

Sunshine!

Session 86 - June 8 - Hook

Sunday June 8, 2:30-4:30, 6'2 KS Fish

I had big plans of going somewhere north today to get some real waves, even got so far as loading up my car w/ two boards, wetsuit, and everything else...and I made it all the way to the Hook...but as I slowly drove past the Hook craning my neck to see what was happening out there I saw a nice fun clean chest high or so set rolling through...and so I just kept on driving right around the block, looped back to my house, unloaded the car, and walked to the Hook. You just can't beat walking to surf, when it comes down to it. That long(ish) drive up the coast to who-knows-what especially when it's windy just wasn't appealing to me at the time.

So I wound up at the Hook and made the most of it. Small, fast, but fun waves, and the kirkshapes fish was the right tool for the job, fun board for out there -- it's probably exactly what that board was made for, as Kirk (the shaper) is a noted Hook regular. Those waves are great practice for me, small and fast, really leave you no room for error, so it's good to get out there and try to make the most of 'em, if I'm lucky I get in one mini turn. Anyways it was fun, nice, close by, warm water, not too bad of a crowd, and I got to walk home after. Good livin'.

One other realization I'll post very quickly is that small summer days at the Hook are not a good form of exercise. Is there a surf spot anywhere that requires less paddling?

Session 85 - June 7 - Cowell's

Saturday June 7, 5-7 pm, 7'6 Kingfish + Maddy on the 9'6 FSC + Joel on the 9'0 Becker + Mom with 2 cameras snapping away from the cliffside

Nic's Surfboard Emporium was open for business on Saturday afternoon, as Maddy decided she wanted to try her hand at this surfing thing again (although when it comes to surfing and Maddy, it's really more of a photo-shoot thing than a surfing thing, to be honest). So we broke out all the biggest sticks I have, loaded the surfmobile Yaris w/ the two longboards on top and the Kingfish inside, threw in my old wetsuit for Maddy, and cruised on up to beginner longboard heaven, Cowell's. We had been over on the west side earlier in the afternoon, and Cowell's was looking a lot of fun, clean, slow, lined up rollers meandering on in through the soft-top cluttered lineup, looking like fun (albeit somewhat dangerous obstacle course)...it looked a lot different by the time we arrived w/ surf gear later in the day. I had thought the tide would be low enough by late afternoon for it to be good, but guess I overestimated how much the tide was going to go out, plus the wind had gotten to it by then as well...so it was a completely different picture of crumbly, inconsistent, and sloppy waves coming through every now and then. But, much to the benefit of Maddy, there were now only 4 other people out -- not the 50 who were there this morning. Good news for flailing Maddy, good news for the health and longevity of my 3 surfboards that were being called to action! So we'll take it. Suited up while mom was snapping photo after photo, carried the boards down the stair in a constant state of worry (Maddy carrying surfboards makes me worry incessantly -- for the safety of my surfboard, that is), but managed to get in the water with no injury or accident, and were on our way. As I said the surf wasn't much at all, super crumbly not much of anything to catch, but for Maddy it served well. She got to have her choice of whatever she could try to catch (or get pushed into), she got better at balancing on the longboard, learned how to spin the longboard around for takeoff, and...she almost (so close!) stood up for the 1st time. She is good at surfing on her hands and knees. Like dad! Runs in the family.

It was fun to have everybody out there enjoying themselves and I think Maddy had a good time until she got really cold. I'll give her credit for lasting as long as she did in my old holey wetsuit that fits her reasonably well but not that great. Nicely done sis. I don't have the pictures as they are on my mom's camera, but I'll try to get them from her soon and put a couple up here. Maddy the surfer girl, so hot right now!

session 84 - June 6 - 2nd peak

Friday June 6, 6:45-7:45 PM, 9'0 Becker

Sessions have been kinda few and far between of late, so when I got home tonight and saw some halfway decent waves breaking out there and had an hour of time before dinner with mom and the sis, I was on it quick. Refreshing just to get out in the water, which happens to be a really great temperature right now, warmed up a lot since early spring when it was a dang icebox. Feels good now. As for the surf it wasn't anything stellar but it was definitely worth an hour of my time...my last wave was good, paddled into the wave going left, straightened out on the drop, and then made probably one of my best ever longboard bottom turns of all time, still kinda slow mind you but swung that thing around and cranked it, right back up the face of the wave, pretty solid in my opinion...felt good to me! I'll often be so slow on that bottom turn, not get it around fast enough, and kind of stall out for a second in front of the wave...more beginner kook style than seasoned longboard veteran...this was a brief foray into more experienced longboarder territory...and it felt good, will have to try more of it again soon.

My alarm is set for 5:30 am...in hopes of getting a morning surf in before the worst of the negative low tide and then the wind hit...what do you think the odds of me actually getting out of bed? Gotta say I'm not even liking them myself, wow, it's 1:22 AM already? Yeah we'll say 20% chance of getting out of bed at 5:30 am. But...you never know. Anything can happen!

Update: I didn't get out of bed.

professional ding repair

My friend Ramin, eager to expand his surfing repertoire, recently decided to get started doing a little of his own ding repair on one of his boards. Being such an 'expert' in the field myself, he came to me for some pointers, I gave him some advice, he researched a bunch on the internet, bought a hodgepodge of supplies, and set out on his own to discover the wild and wonderful world of DIY surfboard ding repair. Here's a synopsis of our IM chat detailing his discoveries:

Ramin: ding repair, what a scene

nic: haha, down and dirty

Ramin: i wish we could have that on video. synopsis:

1) Mixed microspheres and q-cell to roughly yogurt consistency - poured into ding

2) didn't cover with cloth immediately

3) noticed little air bubbles rising

4) little air bubbles turned into massive air bubbles

5) tried to pop air bubbles with graphite from mechanical pencil

6) when we though it was done releasing air, we covered it with cloth and poured on a bunch of resin

7) turns out air was still releasing from the geyser of the ding

8) frantically tried to make a small hole with pencil through the cloth in hopes of releasing the bubbling air

9) sort of worked, just ended up pouring a shitload of resin on top and hoping for the best

Ramin: what a scene!!'
Nic: that's great -- professional ding repair!

Ramin: haha oh wow it was such a disaster

i think we used too much catalyst, right? would that cause air bubbles?

Our discussion continued further from this point, but I'll spare you the details...basically, further expert advice and analysis from me (such as graphite pencil lead is probably not the first supply found in most professional ding repair kits, etc etc)...but end result is he set out to do it and that's what he did. The real work gets started now, how much labor are you willing to put into sanding that whole mess down...but hopefully in the end it'll come out functional...not pretty...but functional. Gotta start somewhere!

And serves as a good illustration for what backyard ding repair endeavors often end up like: running around frantically trying to find something to get something done all covered in resin and junk and no idea what is going on. But in the end, it's amazing, usually things can turn out better than expected.

Moral of the story: if any of you out there have any dings you need repaired...I know a guy who's real good! :)

Dreaming of winter

We haven't really had much to get excited about when it comes to the surf of late...those cold, crisp, swell-filled days of winter now seem such a distant memory... As we get further and further into summer, I'm getting more and more anxious to get on a plane somewhere warm, tropical, and southern hemisphere...

Came THIS close to buying a spur of the moment plane ticket to Mexico a couple days ago. But a few things at work, the very short notice, a family visit, etc etc kept me from pulling the trigger. This time at least. One of these days in the very near future I'll be loading up a board bag and heading south.

Is some swell forecast to hit us this weekend and early next week, we'll see how it pans out. Been real windy here lately negating any swell we may get with general slop conditions -- we'll see.

Below are a few wintertime pictures dug up from the archives (ie January)...

Session 83 - June 1 - Hook

Sunday June 1, 5:45-7:15 PM, 6'8 Taylor

After getting some work done around the house, getting a quick visit by Kurt from work to show him around and walk along east Cliff, and doing a botched attempt at repairing the huge fin gash on that 8'6 longboard I picked up a while ago, I decided to go for a quick surf. Kurt and I had seen some actually fun looking, but very inconsistent, waves coming through the hook, so that's where I went. And that's what I got. Some fun, fast but makeable waves, with some really really long waits in between. But it was worth it to get out there, and I caught 2 waves that were memorable, that I stayed out in front of and managed to build some pretty good speed. Certainly wasn't crowded (why would it be, wasn't really that good) and so that's fun, able to get the set waves of pretty much all the 4 or 5 total sets that came through in the session.

On the topic of ding repair, this board has been a lot of work...it's getting close to finished (finally) but that fin gash I'm going to have to do over again...I need some really good filler, better than the q-cell I have right now I think (or I just need to learn how to properly use q-cell). Otherwise, I'll be using practically the entire bottle of resin to fill that thing -- that gash is huge. Once that is all finished though that board will be in good shape...some definite battle scars, but on the things that really matter, that board is practically like new. I don't plan to keep it though, will likely sell that one for a small profit to reflect the work (and supplies!) that have been poured into it.

Monday! Back to work....

Chi-town

Chicago Dog -- all the fix'ins (+ what looks like about all the cheese in Illinois, wow)

Navy Pier

View from Sears Tower

View Part II

Leave it to us to leave the California beaches behind and head straight for the Chicago beaches...Oak St Beach and a view of our hotel #2, The Drake, which was right in front of it. This happened to be opening day for the beach, and it was beautiful, warm, sunny, and a great way to spend an afternoon.

I liked the light in this one.

Lake Michigan swell -- pumping!

Water Tower

And finally the reason for the whole trip: Selin's good friend John's wedding. Nice artsy photo taken by none other than Selin herself, solid work! Congrats John!

Session 82 - May 31 - WC

Saturday May 31, 10:15-12:00, 6'8 Taylor

Little to no surf in town so time to trek up north...again loaded the surfmobile with surf supplies, plus had some extra special bonus cargo this time -- Selin -- and hit the road. Met Ramin and settled on spot #2, as it was looking the best. Surf was inconsistent and shoulderish high on the good sets, but we both managed to pick off some worthy waves to make the driving and effort worthwhile. Water sure was cold.

Weird behavior -- this baby sea lion literally came within a foot of me, popped it's head out the water and then proceeded to just hang out there right next to me, doing whatever it is baby sea lions do...snorting his nose out of the water from time to time for air, just kind of chillin'...entertaining, but still a little surreal to have this creature right next to me, this animal that breathes air, just like us humans, yet spends his life in the water...little sea otters are a pretty normal occurrence to have right next to you in the lineup especially at PP, but those sea lions usually keep their distance, so this was a first. The little (well kind of big, but clearly not full grown) proceeded to do the same to the 10 or so other surfers that were out in the lineup -- really just being a part of the group. Everybody was somewhat confused/entertained/slightly spooked by this...eventually he went his own way, but that was an interesting happening.

After surf continued driving north and went to SF to meet up at a friends and go to the Union St Festival. Didn't last for long at the festival, what a mess of people...but it was fun and I guess worth the drive. My Yaris is good on the gas but those up the coast SF drives sure do use a lot of it.