Log

Yellow Longboard.
Red fin.

Noserides.

Shana Tova

First board of the year!

I like New Year's Day more than New Year's Eve--clean slate and all that. Celebrated the arrival of 2012 with some foam mowing followed by a trip to the coast with the girls. Kites were involved, as were refusals to wear jackets.

Then tears.

Then ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.

Finished the (glorious!) day with a bit of champagne that we hadn't gotten around to drinking the previous night because we have kids and we're tired and we were busy with an epic Super Mario Kart session on the (glorious!) Wii, anyway.

This fresh 9'4 with a green high-density foam stringer bookended by dual cedar sticks will get a shiny candy shell at Almar Glass Works, then head to The Shop in Humboldt. There it will be ogled, fondled, caressed, until it speaks to someone so loudly that they will gladly hand over currency and make it their own.

On the way home, they will crack a window and turn the music a little louder. They will smile slightly as they imagine themselves flying across a wall of liquid energy, knees bent, fingers trailing in the purest green they could possibly imagine.

May we all experience such joy this year.

Qlear Quadsword

Thursdays are the best. First, my employer provides lunch on the condition I sit through an hour-long meeting without any lewd or unseemly outbursts. Done!
Second, it’s not Wednesday, which is the worst.
Finally, I take a moment for myself on Thursdays to post a recent board and fling wide the doors to the HHG inbox to see what’s on the minds of my comrades in the surf-bathing community. Here’s Paul's Quadsword 8'7 and a letter:

Dear HHG, When did you know you were getting old?

Sincerely,
Sleepy in Sebastopol
Good question, SiS. I first realized I was old one morning while suiting up in the parking lot with the stereo cranked. First, I was cranking it because I could barely hear it. Second, I realized that my get-stoked-for-a-session selection was Morning Edition on NPR. It was pretty hard to continue with my denial after that point.
We’ve been dialing in Paul's quiver for a while now, and this midlength really fills a critical niche in our unforgiving waters. Nice to have a little foam under your chest to paddle, nice to have a bit shorter board under your feet to throw around like it’s play money and your Boardwalk property is swathed in tiny plastic hotels.

Dear HHG, is my board ready yet?
Your Friend, Mr _______________ (note to readers: this is not the same Mr. ______________that appears in Alice Walker’s excellent novel The Color Purple. That guy was a total dick)

Dear Mr. ____________,
Yes!
Just kidding, it’s not.
Clear glass job by the stoked folks out at Northern Light Surf Shop in Bodega. Glass fins by Rainbow Fin Co. in La Selva.

Dear HHG, I’ve noticed that when my three-year-old puts on her pants, she leads with the right foot. Does this mean she’ll be a goofy? I love my three-year-old, but the rest of us in the family are regular foots, and I don’t want to have to consider a trip to Raglan when the rest of us are stoked about Scorps.
All Right in Guerneville

Dear ARiG, as parents, our job is to support our children no matter their stance predilections. That said, goofyfoots are an abomination of nature. Has there ever been a goofyfoot in the Whitehouse? I rest my case (I know what you’re thinking: Martin Van Buren, eighth President of the United States, was a goofyfoot, which is incorrect—he was actually the first switchtance surfer to reach the presidency). What’s of greater concern, though, is the probability of two regularfoots giving birth to a goofyfoot: one in sixteen hundred. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but you might want to ask yourself this: was your significant other ‘just friends’ with any Kiwi surfers/yoga instructors/massage therapists about four years ago? Remember, the accent might not always be a reliable indicator. Dreadlocks, unkempt beards, and juggling with devil sticks are dead giveaways. Good luck.

And with that, I once again close up the inbox and retire to my afternoon meeting. I hope there are cookies.

Of Thanksgiving, Turkeys, and Fresh Foam

Thanksgiving!

For some, the mere name conjures food porn of the highest order: turkey, duck, chicken (sometimes in the same overall package), ham, mashed potatoes, yams, and more pie than you can shake a big, pie-shaking stick at.

For others it's about family, offering thanks for the many blessings we've received during the year, and maybe having a few too many dry reislings before telling your uncle that he could probably better understand the Occupy Movement if he rolled down the windows of his Lexus and took his first deep, un-airconditioned breath of inequality. Oops!

Most of the world doesn't give a shit about Thanksgiving, though, and that's fine with me. Babies continue to be birthed, waves continue to roll toward shorelines, and my 1998 Toyota Siena minivan continues to guzzle coolant like someone I know guzzled dry reisling before having a few fateful words with their newly-estranged uncle. Oops!

And surfboards! Surfboards are dreamed-up, fantasized about, laden with impossible hopes and dreams, belabored, ordered, anticipated, then finally received in a ritual as complex as the holiday itself. The following is a journey of two fresh boards--one for Mike and one for Kelsey--delivered, surfed, and toasted during our recent Thanksgiving pilgrimage to SanO.

1. The reveal: 7'6" quad egg and 9'4" log.

2. The First Wax. Child labor makes the process faster, though much more likely to get wax in places where wax doesn't go, Like on the bottom. Or on fins. Or in finboxes. Tough call.

3. The Kicking-of-the-Tires: gonna be a good noserider! My 2yr old channeling George Greenough's hair.

4. The Hero Shot.

5. The Locating-of-the-Sweet-Spot.

6. The Staying-Out-Until-Near-Dark-and-Trading-Boards-and-Experiencing-General-Euphoria.

The seasonal spirit more than made up for the I5 traffic, though I have to admit the first spirit I hit after twelve hours of driving was a wee bit of the Talisker 10yr--another reason to give thanks.

As Artie from the Larry Sanders said of Talisker 10, "one day you will die and go to heaven. When you enter the pearly gates and meet God for the first time you will say 'hello' and he will say 'hello' back. When he does, this is what you will smell on his breath."

In my dreams God also has a post-sess saltwater nasal drip going, some serious surf hair, and a smile that says my secret spot is snapping, and I'm in a giving mood. That's an idea of heaven I could really get behind.

Thanks for reading, and hope you had a great holiday.

Blues for Tues: of Mini-Simmons, Thanksgiving, and Snickers

Nothing says, "America's fuggin rad" quite like the calendar stretch that encompasses both Halloween and Thanksgiving. The two holidays capture America at its best: creative, free of secular nonsense, and steeped in sharing.

They also capture the best as aspects of consumption, which, when it comes to Russian River pinot noir and Snickers Bars, isn't a bad thing at all.

These four weeks also hold the promise of epic surf conditions for California--active storm systems to both our north and south, warmer water temperatures, and an end to the devil winds of summer.

Not so much this year, though.

The good news is that despite this season's meager surf offerings, creativity and consumption have flourished. Especially if you're Fred, who has already consumed several waves on this baby blue 5'7, and expressed his freaky side on their wide-open faces.

And a solid community put this thing together: foam by the good people of US Blanks, glass by the talented hands at Almar Surf Works in Santa Cruz, and fins by Marlin Bacon of 101 Fin Co.

Have a great Thanksgiving. Don't forget to call someone and tell them you love them, even if you're exaggerating a little bit--they'll never know, and you'll feel that much better as you dig into some beaujolais nouveau.

War Pony Chronicles: Urho the Milk Drinker

In a department store in Minnesota in 1956, Richard Mattson invented the patron saint of Finland. He called him St. Urho. Why? Because Finland needed a patron saint, damnit, and their current one, Henry, Bishop of Finland, kind of sucked. For example: Henry could not guzzle sour whole milk in obscene quantities. Urho could.

Henry could not expel plagues of grape-munching grasshoppers from the countryside. Urho could.

And Henry’s name was Henry, for God’s sake, not Urho. Would you rather pray for strength to a saint whose name translates to Hero, or to one whose name translates to, ahh, Henry?

My point is that I’m calling this board a Jet Pony. I’ve tried other names and they don’t stick. I care not what anonymous blog commenters (“sounds like a Power Puff girl character” and ”isn't that the Care Bear with the rainbow on her overalls?”) or that one grumpy guy in France (“Not at all masculine. Also, a fish must be under six feet in length”) thinks. It’s a War Pony with a jet tail and it just makes sense.

This particular Jet Pony (or Jet Poni for my Croatian readership) is for North Bay surf-bathing enthusiast Keefe, who likes to shred Ocean Beach when he’s not consulting international startups, Occupying London, or blazing our local single-track offerings.

It's 6'4, very shiny, and sports a quad setup (patyo sa loob for those in the Philippines). Just the thing for OB, which has no shortage of steep walls and likes to reward those with superior rail-to-rail quickness.

Fast.

I Love Log

I Love Log.