Pet Cobra

The Leaves Fall, Among Other Things

I took the day off; there are two bedrooms to paint, Lucas' new digs and the future home of Baby #2. The reality of Baby #2 hit me for the first time - the room will be two shades of pink, with lots of girly beachy stuff, and holy shit the number of weeks until she gets here can be measured in single digits. Baby girl. Holy shit. I realize that I just repeated myself. But a baby girl.

There's gotta be some symbolism about prepping the house for a new baby on this, the last week of Tourist Summer. It feels like fall, despite the heat - certainly the ocean is over it, adjusting its thermostat downward. And there's a faint hint of crispness in the air, and even a slight chill just before the sun comes up. Barely discernable signals that changes are afoot, big things are coming.

The Apprentice At Work

I had some help waxing the Hollingsworth.

San-Overated?

Ah, the joys of a flex schedule. 5:45 a.m. and I'm up and out, quick stop at the ATM and Starbucks, and I pull up to the San-O ranger booth at 6:30. The day starts out well - the ranger informs me that his cashbox is broken, and thus there will be no fees today. Guess karma swung back my way after my last attempt to surf there.

The place is striking; you can definitely feel the classic California vibe. Big boards and the occasional retro shorty, with the colorful cast one would expect: here was a old guy in a battered old Toyota Land Cruiser, Alaska license plates reading "RETIRED", there was a yound dude trying to coax his Rottweiler on to a twelve-foot tanker. The thing was, by San-O standards it wasn't even crowded. Still, there were at least 75 people out at the point, more still at Old Man's. It's been a whille since I've surfed in crowds, but at first it didn't phase me. "Real friendly crowd", I overheard one guy say to another. "We share waves and so everyone has fun." I didn't really feel like battling every other person in the lineup for a ride. That sounded fine.

Except that it wasn't.

On three separate occasions, I'd lined myself up PERFECTLY to snag peaky rights. And each time, some guy jumped right in, either directly in front of me right as I was taking off, or hopped onto the shoulder (once as I was attempting a cross-step to the nose). As more and more people joined the fun, etiquette flew right out the window. Every wave was a Party Wave. No room to do anything but stand up, and go right. It became obnoxious. I've been trying to push myself to surf the PCM like it should be surfed, to be a REAL longboarder, and this wasn't the place to do that. (I will say that the one guy who consistently scored waves with no one else on them was hanging on the inside, riding a fish, and having a blast.) And all the while the cars kept rolling in to the parking lot.

So one more feat to check off of the "Things To Do Before I Die" list. Will I go back? Maybe, but I'd take a day off, maybe in the fall, go mid-week, bring the fam and plan on staying all day. It occurs to me that I'll take my inconsistant beachbreaks over the San-O circus any day; having marginal waves to oneself will always trump good waves with dozens of others.

Board For Sale

It's time for me and the Hogfish to part ways. It's a great board, custom made for me by Ian Wright at Aftermath (it was the prototype for the UFG Model; go here and scroll down for a pic and description).

Here's some pics of mine:

Dimensions are 6'8" x22 x 2 58/8".  Futures Fin box, currently with a twinzer setup, smaller trailing fin. There's a very small ding in the tail, and a very small pressure ding on the bottom. If I had the time and energy, I'd have ridden the board a lot more; it's made for smaller, knee to waist-high surf, but with a thruster set should perform in bigger stuff.  Truth be told, the Hog went into the garage when I got the new longboard, and has only been ridden a couple of times in the past two months. If you're interested, shoot me an email ([email protected]).

Oi, It's so Humid...It's Like A Sauna

Allow me to sing the praises of my Quiksilver Synchro Vest, quite possibly the best $35 I've ever spent. 1.5 mm of sleeveless comfort. Especially on days like today - when I rolled out of bed this morning at 6:00, to the sound of our neighbor's rooster cock-a-doodle-doing its everfucking lungs out (yes, our neighbors have a rooster, in addition to three turkeys; welcome to Encinitas, let your freak and farmer flags fly), the temperature was already in the 70's, and there was a wet sheen over everything. It's been muggy for days, and it's one thing to have temperatures and relative humidity levels in the 80's when you live in an air-conditioned house, quite another when your home has no air conditioning and the insulating properties of an Amish barn. (Tune in this winter, when I bitch about how cold the place gets.)

I met up with Ted at the Tamarack parking lot. The ocean was like day-old Coke - warm and flat. We hung out for a bit; it became clear that things there weren't going to improve, so Ted opted for a swim. I opted for a coffee and hauled ass southward to Undisclosed Location (it's actually a fairly well-known spot, but why add more logs to the jam). There were a few knee-to-waist high waves; I avoided the mass of people crowded around a perceived peak, and had a few to myself. The Quiksilver vest was perfect; the water and the sun on my back kept me plenty warm. There was, unbelievably, a guy in a fullsuit in the lineup. Crazy.

ETA: 9:06 pm 8/21/07 - speaking of crazy...make sure you read the comments.

The Seventh Day

I've been on a bit of a tear. By my calculations, I've been in the water for 10 for the past 12 days (two bodysurfing sessions, the rest on one board or another). My schedule has allowed me more water time this summer than any time since the SeaWorld days, and I've taken advantage of that. Carpe aqua. This morning Surfline revealed little; I briefly thought of grabbing the Hog and walking across the street to Home Break just for the hell of it, but no. My neck, back, and shoulders thank me.

John Goes Back to Cincinnati

To quote Bill Jacks: "Jesus Christ JESUSCHRIST!"

The finale, which I finally watched late last night, opened with a brilliant sequence, set to a killer Dylan song. The show was frustrating, filled with unlikable characters and obtuse dialogue, and at times made absolutely no sense (well, actually, it now mostly does, although we'll never know if JFC himself was from God, or from space, or merely from Cincinnati). But it turned into, of all things, a rather sweet show about faith and redemption, and I'll miss it.

Some General Observations*

*and by that, I mean general bitching/moaning.

1. Old Guys - contrary to what those t-shirts say, not all of you rule. I'm speaking to the guy riding the 12 footer (sporting, of course, the webbed paddling gloves) just north of T******* the other morning - if you're going to try to snake waves and drop in on the rest of us, at least dig deep and summon up the strength to actually catch the gutless knee-high mushburgers that you feel are yours by right of seniority.

2. Kayakers in the lineup. No. Just...no.

3. Parents who ignore their kids who enjoy throwing handfuls sand and large rocks at each other - those of us who don't want sand in our eyes, or our kids' eyes, retain the right to give you a smug look when, not more than five minutes after we ask your kids to please not throw sand around other people, one of your kids starts shrieking "MY EYE! MY EYEEEEEEEEE!" in agony.

4. Those who surf leashless at my homebreak, which is a "mixed" (swimming/surfing allowed) beach - I feel ya. I went leashless yesterday morning, in fact; took the neglected Hollingsworth, and really enjoyed it, forced me to concentrate. That said, there weren't any little kids playing in the shallows. The other day I watched a dad grab his little girl, maybe 4 years old, just before she would have been drilled by a flying shortboard - if it had hit her, she would have been in the hospital, or worse. The surfer in question wasn't some beginner - he was quite good, and 99 out of 100 times he doesn't lose his board. To his credit, the surfer swam in, apologized profusely to the father and the little girl, and put a leash on before going back out (and to the dad's credit, he didn't beat the shit out of the surfer; I can't say that I would have shown such restraint). My point: use good judgment before you opt out of the leash.

5. In this post, I made a couple of disparaging remarks about a "jerkoff sponger". I don't get much hatemail - I think one actually needs readers to get hatemail - but I did get an email from a guy who took me to task on the whole bodyboarding v. surfing thing. The reader dropped some names of some presumably well-known bodyboarders, told me how tough the whole one-knee-riding thing is, etc. I don't care about bodyboarding either way - the one-knee-thing, I'll admit, looks tough, but then again, if you get hit on the head with your nice soft Morey, the risk of stitches/concussion/short-term memory loss is substantially lower - but I do care about bodyboarders who drop in on surfers.

6. The Hogfish, while a fine board, is the last shortboard I'm ever going to buy. I'll most likely get a set of thruster fins for it, for wintertime. I'm wondering, too, if the low-end fins that came with the board (twinzer set made out of that weird plastic-y stuff) have that big of an effect on the board; it just doesn't feel like it has any drive coming out of the initial drop. Conversely, my next acquisition, Spring 2008, will be a stand-up paddler. Not so much for the surfing aspect of it, more as a way to keep in shape. I'm trying to talk Ted into making me one.

7. Kid's fine, wife's fine, gestating baby is fine and still on track to arrive in early November. Thanks for asking. I'll write more about them soon. See, I have an idea for a new site, one that's more - well, ALL - about The Surfing. More on that as it develops. Oh, and I'm looking for additional writers for that new site. If you're interested, have your people call my people.

Carlsbad 911!

The morning was free for a 6:00 surf check - I was awake anyway, thanks to our neighbors, who've recently acquired a rooster. Yep. Gotta love Leucadia.

South I drove, down to Semi-Secret Spot, which was crap, so north I drove, to C-bad, which was also crap. I spent a bit longer than normal observing the surf, because I'd pulled up next to three, count 'em, three of C-bad's Finest - a trio of motorcycle cops who were having an enlightening conversation about the art of giving out speeding tickets (one actually had a radar gun in hand, but putting it use, well, that would have meant working). One of the officers was speaking of a guy he'd pulled over for "doin' 40" - "I was gonna give him a warning, but he didn't apologize, so I gave him the ticket." Thus was justice served, and the good citizens of Carlsbad breathed a collective sigh of relief, as another villain received his come-uppance.

Our Trip To San Francisco...

...was cool, but not as cool as MONKEY VERSUS ROBOT.