Day of the Dude

Sometimes life throws you a bone and you get to have a day to yourself to wander about in one's solitude. One with no kids, no responsibilities, no work and no wife. My bone was delivered* at the peak of this most recent southie. Yeah...the timing was impeccable.

Of course this meant I could take my sweet time meandering up to LPB for an extended session. So I lazily strolled up at 5:15am like real slackers do and found only two other guys in the lineup and an empty parking lot. Sets were coming in chest+. I had packed the Zippi and my Butter Bonzer. Watching the one guy out there on a standard shortboard somewhat struggling to get in to the high tide-ish waves prompted me to paddle out on the Zippi. Let's just say I didn't have any problems getting in to them.

3 guys out and decent waves. Wave Fest 2009. To top it off, I got greedy and started to check-paddle the shortboarder because he was batting about .500 at getting in to the waves. His loss was my gain. The old wave count really skyrocketed at that point. So, for about the first 45 minutes, we had the place to ourselves and I definitely had a session's amount of face time by that point.

As the tide continued to drop, folks started showing up because the shape got a little better along with the energy. Things were picking up nicely, albeit at the cost of a crowd. I figured a board change was in order so I paddled in and saddled up the BB. I've never really had a good opportunity to compare boards in the same session until now. These two boards were diametrically opposed. One, a seat of the pants glider and the other, a performace-like driver that still generated its own speed. I'd say the session was better on the Bonzer. It's a nice piece of work.

So after a few hours I came home and napped, did some yard work (I'd feel guilty doing absolutely nothing), grabbed some Pho, took another nap and jammed on the guitar. I figured a movie would be in order so I had a drink and saw "Star Trek". I capped everything off with happy hour and a couple of Old Speckled Hens.

Day of the Dude.

*That's what she said.

And He Decided To Post Again

Let's see where we're at here, shall we?

There hasn't been a lot on the surfing front. There were a couple of lame El Porto sessions that really won't provide any good reading, so, I'm going to skate right over those. That leaves me with an Orange County run last Saturday.

Summer is in full force right now and that means the homebreak is a complete and utter waste of time. You haven't seen poor waves until you've seen Venice try to make something out of south swells. The only good thing that can be said is that Venice is not tide-dependent on these southies. It's going to be shitty regardless.

Given that, I made a DP run to Huntington. It's a drive, but, it's roughly the same amount of time it takes to get to upper L.A. County beaches. And instead of fighting the crowds at our pointbreaks up here you're rewarded with several miles of A-frame beachbreak. I had a peak to myself for two hours. And the shape would be equivalent to Venice when it's "all-time". The Butter Bonzer was a lot of fun once again. Oddly enough, I spent most of my time taking the right (backside) instead of the left which, on the bonzer, really doesn't make much difference. It reduces the backside handicap. Hopefully, I can get back down there this week.

In other news, I bought a nice ding repair kit from Foam-EZ and put it to the test yesterday on a rail ding for the HIC quad. I was using a couple of plastic saw horses I picked up from Sears and used soundproofing foam to cover the tops. Yeah, it was scary taking a box cutter to a surfboard, creating a worse looking hole than what I started with and then attempting to fix it. But after a couple of botched q-cell filler mix attempts, I finally got it right and was able to fill it, sand it to shape and put 3 patches of glass on it. Solid as a rock. There are a couple of small spots where the resin kind of gooped up and I'm wondering how much more I should try to sand them down (no sander...by hand). Rails kind of make it difficult to contain the resin since it's not a flat surface and that stuff wants to run. Stupid gravity. I'll probably just leave the little spots. They're very small.

(As requested...a picture)

So that's it. All caught up. Enjoy your week.

Yes, I Did Get A Tie

I must really love my family. For Father's Day, instead of allowing my wife to purchase me a gargantuan, new, Weber grill that could easily hold an entire side of beef and whose charcoal pyramid could be seen from space once lit, I let her buy some patio furniture. It was for the good of the family. I was happy with the ice chest and folded towels I had been using as a loveseat out there, but, I knew what she really wanted. So, I gracefully declined the BBQ offer.

I spent the afternoon assembling said furniture and am proud to say I did not have any screws or nuts left over after completion. I was rewarded with a twelve pack of Sam Adams assorted. And big honkin' filet mignons. And a bottle of Pinot Noir. And some unmentionables. The kid made me a tie out of construction paper. It had a crayon drawing of somebody shooting hoops on it. I wore it to breakfast.

Surf? Yeah...I've had a few sessions. Unfortunately, somebody secretly replaced the nice windswell waves we were supposed to have with weak and ultra-mushy imposters. I told my buddy in the lineup, "I don't say this very often about El Porto, but, I kind of wish these had more juice." It doesn't look very promising for the rest of the week either. Hello, gym.

Jalama - July 12. W00t!