No Thanks

Struck with food poisoning from sushi on Friday. No more surfing to be had this weekend. First and hopefully last time I'll have food poisoning. Ugh.

Mental note: On a week where everybody's thinking turkey, do NOT eat raw fish that might have been hanging around lonely.

Thanks

I had a crap-tacular Wednesday and I carried over my moody baggage into Thursday, a holiday, Thanksgiving. All I knew was I was going to surf my brains out to try to shake off the bad mood. Good mood starter #1: I was greeted by waves I could see from the parking lot. Good mood starter #2: There was actually some shape to play around in.

Since I've gone exclusively back to the Cooperfish because my other boards are dinged, the callous on the top of my head where I carry the board has reformed. Walking with the board is a piece of cake now. And turning the heavy monstrosity on waves has pretty much come back to me. Lots of good lefts, a few okay rights which closed out too quickly for my liking, and I had pretty much shaken off my bad mood.

Unfortunately, as soon as my bad mood left, my body decided to get tired. Since I'm not the obsessive surfer that I once was, my lungs have decided that just paddling out makes me winded. After two and a half hours, I was done. The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak.

I gave thanks, though, for some decent-sized waves.

Today, knee-to-waist mush. Any other time this year and I would have said "no thanks" but I was committed to surfing as much as I can this long holiday weekend before heading back to my bad mood on Monday. I was out early (because I had to pick up my parents from the airport at 10am) and the air was nippy. So nippy that the hat made its first appearance this season.

It could be like the groundhog spotting its shadow in February. If you spot the hat on my head, winter's coming three weeks early this year.

Just go!

I know, I know. I missed a couple of days of really good surf. Crazy barrels on Tuesday... yeah yeah yeah I heard. Stop telling me how amazing it was, okay?!

I just couldn't bring myself to wake up when then alarm rang in the dark this whole week. The job has me at work at 9am now, so it's dawn patrol or nothin' for me. And lately, I've lost the dawn patrol mojo.

So, this morning, it was just a triumph for me to get out of the house by 6:30am.

But I arrived at home break to find knee-high mush. One guy on a shortboard imitating a buoy. This wasn't very appealing and I was about to leave when Bob (the Bob formerly known as Sponge) gave me the hard sell: Corner there! Tide drops! Longboard!

Okay okay. And he was right. It wasn't even close to a stellar day, but the sky was blue and the water wasn't freezing and I got some fun little waves on my big blue Coop. It was small enough for me to confidently go leashless and subsequently lose the board almost every wave. I'm getting the turning thing down, but now I'm finding a different issue: I'm not sure what to do with the wave that lays out in front of me. My timing with this board is off. I see the wave. The shoulder even starts moving in slow motion for me, but I don't know whether to come down and lose speed or stay high and get pitched when the bottom falls out. This happened on almost every single left I took. I know, I know. It's just a matter of dialing into this board again. Practice practice practice.

Big Blue Coop

Oh, r-i-i-ght. THAT'S why I loved my Big Blue Cooperfish so much. Saturday, I kept thinking how much more fun I'd be having if I'd brought Weirdo (who's on the rack while I figure out what to do about the dings opening up and glass issues). I traded boards with Riab who looked miserable on my board, but her Chris Slick board was fun for me! Makes me remember why I like performance longboards. Back on my Cooperfish, I couldn't turn it and bunked some decent shoulders. I knew what I had to do... step back on the tail (way back), pivot, walk... I just couldn't get my body to do it.

Today, my body and Coop started remembering how to work together again. I started finding that sweet spot where I could turn the board without effort. I'm pretty sure I look like an idiot on take-off with my arms flailing and my hips jutting to catch up to the board, but it sure was FUN remembering how tenuous a thing balance can be when you stand on different parts of the board.

I came home and finally took the wax off the two halves of Doc. I have some idea about taking it to Aquatech and getting it fixed as a beater board for visitors, but I'm slightly afraid Ken et. al. are going to start laughing the second I take one half of it out of the car. As I rubbed the remaining film of wax off the board with citrus oil, I couldn't help but think that THIS was exactly the performance longboard I've been idly looking for since I broke it a few months ago. I love the big rocker. I love the shape of the nose (pulled in a little so it doesn't look like a giant gangplank). I love love LOVE the transition of the rails from the middle to the tail.

I don't know. After all the idle distractions and considerations of other boards over the past few months, I might be making a visit to Huntington to have Doc III made.

Me

I just got around to getting some digital photos off the boy's camera.

For giggles, I thought I'd share my portrait at the anti-war rally this past spring:



I still think this would have been funnier if I'd found a Barbara Bush mask. She's much more recognizable than the current first lady.

Pretty things

Sensei J called me up asking, "How much money do you have?" Then he made me go over to Cooperfish's website. Looks like Gene has some custom jobs for sale:

"Round Labels"

Sensei J bought #110, and I probably shouldn't be advertising this because I kinda hope #104 remains available through December. Anybody want to buy me a present?