Sick day.

Day 128 - 131 - Now That’s Realer than Real Deal Holyfield

Sorry for biting your ear off. I was wrong, the swell was legit, it was not overhyped and I scored some serious bombs right out front of my pad. Come on El Nino, let’s do this. We had about the worst winter that I can remember following about the worst summer that I can remember. Something has got to give.

Day 128 - Oops I did it again
Friday, I did not think that it was very big so I headed out there with my standard equipment. WRONG! I lost my board 2x and had enough. I went and got a leash and a new board that could handle the size. I was getting sick, but I made the dash in record time anyway.



Day 129 - Bombing
I the biggest waves out of the south that I have caught in Manhattan Beach. Crazy, crazy good times. The current was like a treadmill, and nobody could handle it. I know there was a reason for surfing 128 days in a row!!! My paddle was good, I was able to catch some bombs! I made some sections that were screaming. I did some of the biggest most critical turns of my life out there. For some reason you feel a lot more comfortable at home. I would not have gone for it that much elsewhere.

Day 130 - Fun and the Gang
Surfed O-side with my brother, Tim, Jason and Tom. Pretty fun there too. The swell was dying however and it was a lot smaller than Saturday. Still fun though, I was cool to surf with the crew. I was really beat up from being sick and the marathon week that I had, capped by the Saturday Session.

Day 131 - Still some south in the water. I was glad to be home. I just like my sand bar, that's it. I know the crowd, they know me. It is home. Some snappy turns out there today.

Day 127 - Respect...

I got some today (in the water)...

If you get respect from somebody that you do not respect, then it is an insult...

Showing respect is a lot easier than you think...

What keeps us from showing respect to others are our insecurities...

A little goes a long way...

Jack Box

They took my computer for updates, so I'm at the park reading. Jack is
here too.

Day 125 - It's official, tied the record!!!

Well, probably not really, but it is fun to act like it. I actually do not know how many days the streak lasted in '07, but it was certainly 125 or under. I wrote down each session on a calendar, but I cannot find this calendar, so I roughly calculated how many days it could be and then added a pad to be sure that I break my old record and this is how I came up with 125. March 19, is when I started this adventure, I cannot believe it! That was a long time ago! Well, I set out to surf for the entire summer last time. This time, it appears that I have surfed for the entire spring (that just dawned on me). I don't know where it stops, maybe at the official end of summer to make it interesting... I'll work that out over the next few days, but it will probably end there. Why not? 187 days? That's a likable number now isn't it? At least it is popular in all the rap songs that populate my iPod. What 187 means to me:

* 187 is an odd number
* 187 is a composite number
* 187 is a deficient number, as 29 is less than 187
* 187 is a self number
* 187 is a square-free number
* Prime factors of 187: 11 × 17
* Divisors of 187: 1, 11, 17, 187
* 187 is the sum of 3 consecutive prime numbers: 59 + 61 + 67
* 187 is the sum of 9 consecutive primes: 7 + 11 + 13 + 17 + 19 + 23 + 29 + 31 + 37
* 187 is the difference of 2 square numbers: 142 - 32, and 942 -932
* 187 is a centered 31-gonal number

Straight from Wiki... I love it. Who does this? It seems every number has a Wikipedia page. I was looking for something to do next Sunday. I got it! I'll look for numbers that do not have their own Wikipedia page and contribute!

Wait just a minute there turbo... There is some use for the info on Wiki! It appears that Tonga ranks # 187 in world population! Tonga has waves! What a better way to end my streak then to go to Tonga for day 187? Alright, I'll drop that, I'm out of vacation anyway. I've done research on Tonga and while it apparently can get really good, it is also pretty easy to get skunked there.

But, uh, back to the lecture at hand.... (remember the rap on my iPod?). Today was so fun, I still give the edge to last night however. I saw Ben out there, but I did not catch my rhythm until he left (he gets out at 6:45 as he takes his job seriously). I found the same sandbar that I was on last night, this time it was at a lower tide. I unloaded on a few, tried an air, blew out my tail, all in all that's the spot.

If you haven't heard, there is a swell coming! The irony is that I'm almost certainly getting better waves right now than when the "swell" gets here on Friday-Sunday. It is a long period swell, pointed from a direction that invites inconsistency and will require a rockpile, point or some structure to work as the beach breaks will be walled. It will have been predicted for a week and a half prior to its arrival so if you own a surfboard, boogie board or know someone who does, you probably have planned your weekend already. What does that mean? It means that anything that is working will be super crowded, where do you think the Porto crowd (that I so often reference) will go? Pull up that mental picture of Malibu on a crowded day... Never mind that, I'll do it for you:


And that is 1961! Just be advised that it is an "inconvenient truth" that it actually can be scientifically proven that there are more people now than there were then. That one is for my Dad, he is a big fan of Al. I'm not a big fan of arguing about it...



I'm just a fan of global warming in general, so I'm on Al's side I guess... Maybe it will make better waves, but I admit, it has been difficult for me to rally people around this global warming cause ... My slogan, "Save the landfills, burn your tires!", has not taken hold. Stick to the subject matter here, this is a surf blog. But, you got to admit it, if a robot can make you blood boil, that's some pretty good propaganda! I'm just sayin... I like video.

What is a centered 31-gonal number? Hmmm...

Day 124 - Continued

On a whim, I decided to head back down there at about 6pm tonight. What I got was probably my best session of the summer! Maxing tide, shoulder high peaks that offered 1 chance to turn outside and then one on the inside just before the high tide explosion on the sand. No exaggeration here, on my last wave, my board went farther up onto the sand than ever before. A record! There were pools forming on the other side of the sand bank, because the tide was so high it allowed the water to rush over the sandy little peak. My board, could have hit lifeguard tower, which sits about 20 yards back from the precipice that slopes down to the waves. So fun! Maybe I cannot explain why having a wave detonate on your head in 6 inches of water is fun, but trust me there is a different level of challenge trying to pull a critical turn with no water underneath you. I had a few of those tonight, fortunately I pulled them. However, I'm picking sand out of my ears as I also pulled underneath a number of closeouts, which were born of the same ilk.

There are few things that frustrate me more than the afternoon summer crowd that shows up at El Porto. You see, in terms of general intellect, well that is an oxymoron so I'll stop there. In terms of wave knowledge, well Laughlin, Nevada actually ranked slightly ahead in a recent study. The point is, back to my epicenter argument a few days ago, nobody is getting better, El Porto is a dormant fault line. Not to get off the subject, but this is real genius in my opinion...

I started out at Rosecrans and ended up catching a couple of waves, but they weren't that great. This morning I noticed a decent sandbar down at the life guard tower just south of Rosecrans. I eyed it tonight and decided to head over there. To my surprise, I scored it! It was a left that held from the relative outside until it detonated as I previously described. I had a number of good waves and then the gnat showed up. Some clown followed me down from Rosecrans and proceeded to sit right on me! I would call him a leach, but other than the 1st wave, he didn't take anything from me. You see it is important to clarify what bothers me. I do not mind beginners, I love beginners, there is so much stoke in them. I do not mind mellow competent surfers (I would describe myself as one of these). We can surf, but nobody is paying us. I do not mind pros (they get paid). What I do mind are complete idiots, who clearly have no clue and take themselves too seriously. This was one of those. It started with him following me and then sitting right on top of me, as if he did not have the ability to determine where the waves were going to break on his own. And then it happened, this goofball back-paddled me more blatantly than I can remember ever happening to me. I leisurely paddled for a left that was coming right to me and this guy proceeds to paddle around me and take off. Now I could have taken him out, dropped in, I would have ran into him. No, not worth it, torture is better in this case. First I snowballed the wave onto him and he never made to the open face. Then I caught a wave (described below) and paddled back out, very calmly. You see, what I was about to do did not make me anxious, I was excited about it. I knew exactly where the sand bar was, so I knew I could keep anyone off of it that I wanted. I decided to make the rest of his session very miserable at the expense of mine being really fun. I paddled him too deep one time, I fake paddled for a misto-right another, he bit each time. I sat right behind him giving another surfer plenty of room to go as he made a futile effort for the shoulder that the other surfer was on and then he turned and I'd be on the next wave. I simply caused so much confusion that he could not catch a wave. The fun part (for me at least), is that it is possible to do this all under the cloak of kookdom. I just acted like I was a spazz and super amped, which I could tell was his normal way of being. I just did it with one objective, not to get waves (this is sometimes done by guys that are so amped to get waves they are all over the place) but to keep him off of waves. I'm very calm in the water, very respectful, I can tell when somebody snakes me and they don't mean it, I don't take offense, if I drop in on somebody and it is rare, but it is always an accident. Worse than being dropped in on is certainly the back-paddle. You see it is the difference, to use a bad analogy, between first degree murder and manslaughter. If you back paddle someone, you know you are doing it, it was planned, there is some premeditation. Most of the time, a pure snake is caused by a fit of emotion or general lose of judgement. One thing still puzzled me... Why did he do this? I'm not a great surfer, but this guy couldn't surf, I'm not a great paddler, but I could paddle circles around him, I keep to myself, don't cause trouble and share waves. So why then? This puzzled me as I turned his session into frustration. Then, I got my answer. He finally gave up around 7pm after about 1/2 hour of struggling to catch a legit wave, he got out he went to his things and picked up a second board. Remember, I'm an analyst by training so I'm constantly asking "why?" His second board was about the same length as the one he was riding, it was about the same shape as well, maybe just slightly more pulled in on the nose, both were thrusters. Why would he have 2 boards down on the beach on a standard summer day? He couldn't surf well, so he certainly could not tell the difference, or could he? Is it possible? No, I know it isn't, but in his head it was! This is the classic situation where he hasn't yet seen himself on video! He thinks he "rips"! So funny, I've seen this many times. I even thought that I "ripped" before I first saw myself on video. The simple fact is that this guy really, truly thought that he was a good surfer. That he had the "right" to perform a first degree back-paddle on me. So funny, I'm so glad that I'm at a point where this stuff doesn't bother me, that I can make it all into a game and have fun doing it. I'll admit it, I could almost feel bad. But I don't. Very similar to driving where everyone is waiting in line in traffic and somebody flies up the shoulder and "snakes" in. You want that person to suffer for their lack of respect of others and I want that too. I guess, that's why it is so fun. That must be it. Remember I'm an analyst by training so I have to ask myself "why?" Don't I?

Can you see the "SNAKE" part of this illustration? That's basically what he did but just draw the arrow behind the surfer on the wave instead of in front of him, so that the illustration would then look like the "DROP IN" one on the left. In other words, he would have forced me to drop in on him, not worth it because there was no room to do so.

The irony of the whole episode is that the wave after he back-paddled me was the best wave that I caught all day. I unloaded on it, right in his face, had room for a full-rail cutty and finished it with a close-out blast. So good. So rewarding. The rest of the session was more of the same. Probably the best of the summer for sure. I'm so happy. I'm just so stoked on everything, what is wrong with me? No one person should be burdened with this much stoke!

Re: My post July 18th

I had a movie poster from "Valley Girl". It looks like Google removed it for me. Ha! What technology! Anyway, why would somebody care if I put the poster up from a 1983 B movie? Another one to ponder. I reality, I'm advertising for them. Go figure, I guess algorithms cannot do it all...

Fwd: Hot Temperatures

You see what I mean? I'd rather be at the beach...


Begin forwarded message:

Subject: FW: Hot Temperatures

Forwarded from the office of the building.

---

Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 9:24 AM
To: 865_tenants_1@manulife.com; 865_tenants_2@manulife.com
Subject: Hot Temperatures

We are anticipating extremely warm temperatures in the downtown area this week. To assist with reducing the heat load in your workspace, we recommend:

- Closing all blinds in exterior office, particularly those facing the sun
- Turn off overhead lighting if possible, particularly in the common areas and use task lighting instead
- Turn off any machines that are not absolutely essential

Each one of these suggestions, while seemingly minor in impact, as a whole could greatly reduce temperatures in your workspace as well as reducing the energy load on the entire building.

Thank you for your assistance with this request.

Manulife Financial

Day 124 - Another Summer day...

Clean and fun this morning. Mandatory Monday - worked out again not much crowd and fun little peaks. I didn't surf all that well, I think because I was tired from the day before (surfed for about 3 1/2 hours). I also have a hole on my foot, which started originally from the reef in Tavi, and it seems to be bothering me every time I stand up. Anyway, I had trouble getting my board on rail this morning even though waves were pretty good. Chest high sets, perfect glass, not much power.

How do I get out from under the steel and glass... I wish that I could, even though I like my situation about as much as somebody can, living and working in the jungle. I just want to be at the beach right now. That's it.

1 day to tie, 2 to beat.

Ok last one, couldn't resist.

What a day2

Well i'm not trying to get anywhere. I'm actually just trying to stay
here. Good times...

What a day.

You know how people are always trying to get somewhere?

Day 123 - Take 2

Surfed all afternoon. For some reason they left a pretty good chunk of beach allocated to surfers today. The weather hot and the water warm, the beach was packed with inlanders crowding out the surfers. So there were only a few people that live around here and beginners in the water where they were allowing surfers. It was pretty funny, because the swim part of the beach was packed and the surf part was empty. I trunked it for a solid 2 hours there was quite a bit more swell in the water than I had expected. Pretty fun. The only time that I lost my board all day, it was right on the surf/swim line and it pretty much ran over about 10 kids that were just on the wrong side. Nobody, was hurt, but still was pretty funny. The lifeguard handed me my board. Those dudes have their hands full. You know the drivers on the road that do not have a clue? Yeah, you know the ones and you just shake your head? OK, well at least they have driven before... In this case, you put thousands of people into the water that don't have to pass a test first, you mix in waves and you have a recipe for disaster. All day the life guards are running up and down the beach keeping people safe. I don't think I could do it.

Got some fun waves this afternoon, a couple of really good rights. Had it to myself until some clown started crowding me for no reason. I don't get it, I never will. People are generally idiots and then you have exceptions. I'll probably be a grumpy old man. Good times anyway.

Side note:

Lutrell said I look like Nick Nolte on his DUI arrest picture... Funny, I posted that earlier this week.

Day 123 - Crowded but bigger.

I was on my game. It was fun for sure out there. Wind swell peaks at about stomach high. No leash and risking it today, but I did not lose my board once. I think I'm just getting used to grabbing on to it if I'm going down. But, a side effect of this is that I'm doing things more under control and it is cutting down on my stupid mistakes. The biggest plus is not having that thing throw down a hog tie on the set waves, which murphy says always happens. The crowd was a little more amped this morning, I wasn't having it, if I hadn't seen somebody before, I gave them no respect. I guess, it is just necessary when surfing in the Jungle. It is so dangerous out there when it is that crowded and when the crowd averages about 1 summer of surf experience. Panic is everywhere boards get jettisoned in the most indescribable places. Anyway, still fun. I wish that I was still out there.

Nice day!

Little waves + warm water = a lot of fun

Day 122 - So crowded, It was small.

I some how ended up in the middle of a big group of soft top surf schoolers. I just surfed as I always do, I wasn't mean, but I did push a couple of people over who were obliviously dropping in on me. Nobody could surf out there. Which brings up the "epicenter theory". Is it he quality of waves or the level of talent that brings about better surfers? This is a discussion that happens a lot. I think it is more related to the epicenter. In other words, the more good surfers there are around, the more likely you will be good. Yes, I guess, waves are a requirement, but then why do the best surfers in the world come from Florida? It makes no sense. Bad waves + good surfers = the best surfers. Pushing the limits in slop, is tough, but it makes it so much easier when you actually do surf good waves. The point of this is that there were no good surfers out there today, so I probably did not improve...

Knee high and clean wind swell. I surfed my short board.

She just said "tripindicular"... The stuff that is on TV during the weekends. I don't know how it ended up on this channel, but I'm into it now. It also fits with the theme as there were certainly a bunch of Val Surfers out there today.

I may go surf some more slop now... Not feeling like working right now. I work a lot, not always for my day job though.