Of Thrusters, Mini-Simmons, and Questionable Single-Parenting Practices

Fresh foam for Northcoast shredders M and K, whose boards managed to be shaped and glassed during a particularly unhinged chapter in my life that was the product of the lovely Mrs. HHG frolicking in London for two weeks with her mom.
It's not that single parenting is hard the way that coal mining or dairy farming or building a railroad is hard, but here’s the deal: it comes at the expense of every other thing in your life.
Free time? Nope.
Food? Hope you like shoving a cold hotdog-covered-in-applesauce into your mouth while you hover over the sink.
Culture? Only if your idea of culture is falling asleep on the couch four minutes into an old Arrested Development episode, then waking up two hours later because your laptop is burning into your chest with the heat of a thousand suns. And you're drooling.

Let's say your life is a balloon ride, and all your wonderful non-parenting pursuits (surfing, making surfboards, gardening, scanning ebay for an exact replica of a shirt an old girlfriend gave you that you wore until it was shredded, enjoying the occasional dram of Ardbeg Uigeadail you’ve managed to hide from your peers for the last month) are sandbags hanging over the rail of the balloon basket. There will come a moment—usually within the first twenty-four hours of single parenting—when first one, then suddenly all of those sandbags must be cut free. 

K's 6'0.

The remnants of your former life drop unceremoniously to the ground so that the balloon may stay aloft. You don’t really have any control of where you’re going (though, at some point, you’ll probably end up at the pony rides at Howarth Park), but you have momentum and you’re all aboard and as long as you have some instant Mac&Cheese and popsicles you should make it just fine.

Also, for some reason, there's a lot more nudity when your significant other is out of town. You get out of the shower, almost put on pants, then think, nah.  I know what you're thinking: doesn’t you walking around the house naked look like a sad, hairy snowman?
To which I reply, no, thank you very much. Snowmen wear ties. 

M's 5'7

Maybe a bit of an overshare for a surfblog, but I’m on allergy meds and my head feels like it’s filled with something soft.

Let’s check back in with the surfboards.

From my incomplete family to M and K’s newly completed one: his and her shred sleds in matching green hues with deep, dark, chocolaty cedar stringers.

K’s is pure thruster bliss with top-and-bottom resin abstract by Tony Mikus at Almar Glass Works.

M’s 5’7 mini-Simmons features a green resin wrap with Braztafarian resin pinlines.

M and K are our surfy Northcoast version of Sonny and Cher, only with more dreadlocks and natural-fibered clothing. 

Cowabunga!

If you live in Sonoma County, chances are your surf commute looks a lot like this:
We have greenery, we have a wild, wild ocean, and we have cows.
Perhaps the countless pre-dawn miles logged between SebTown and B-Bay put the zap on Bobert's melon--they say that the imprinting impulse of the human brain is equal to that of ducks and geese.
Mathematicians would undoubtedly reference the Transitive Property of Equality: if stoke is associated with waves, and waves are associated with cows, then cows are the proprieters of stoke. Or something. I was an English major.
And I just finished my second homemade margarita.
Regardless of the principle, the thinking is sound, and what better thing to represent our local surf culture than the Holstein cow? Holsteins are described by an unnvervingly deep-voiced narrative on my daughter's first-season of Sesame Street DVD as, "warm, calm animals," and they are.
Until you piss them off. Then they become much like our local surfers: territorial, aggresssive, and improprietous.
Just kidding. Sesame Street had them pegged at warm and calm. I'll add curious, but that doesn't really strike fear into the hearts of interlopers. Unless they're from a Red State.
So what does this have to do with Bobert's new stick?
Nothing, yet. The initial order was standard: 8'3 Northcoast rounded pintail e-winged five finner with a beefy stringer to withstand our punishing surf conditions. It looked like this:
Then, things started to happen. Bobert began, appropos of nothing, to refer to his new stick, resting gently on the racks at Leslie's, as the Bovine Board. He initiated an email thread amongst his surf crew, extolling his enthusiasm for the cow.
This may not have been wise. The crew, eager to pounce on deviations of any stripe, responded.
Images of unicorns appeared in subsequent email. The winged beast Pegasus was attached several times. There were rainbows and wings and equine nuzzling and a disturbing, anatomically correct (?) manhorse named Steed. There were references to Disney and Trapper Keeper notebooks and, worst of all, Celine Dion.
But Bobert had a vision and, like all visionaries he let the jokes, the chides, and the castigations fizzle.
Bobert endured. He had a vision, and it was good.
The Cowabonza.
The Cowabonza is both in and of NotB. The shape reflects long paddles, steep drops, and frigid, lonely, zero visibility mornings. The glass (and keep in mind all color is done by Leslie Anderson with pigmented resin) reflects our past, our ideology, the basic building blocks of who we are.
And who are we?
We are lovers of place, of ocean, of community. We are smitten with tradition, and innovation, and hand made things.
And it helps if these hand made things are useful, and lovely, and help you get over the ledge at S__m__ _re__ on a morning when nobody else will see you through the fog, or the wind, or the rain. And if someone you don't recognize comments on your CowBoard in the parking lot, just remember you are of this place: a warm, calm cow angling through the pit of an overhead grinder, hardened against the Northwest winds and glassy-capped ocean surface, dancing with the dark green. You are a warrior, and a cow, and I just dove into my third margarita so I'll shut up now, as I am a small man with a small tolerance for all things alcoholic.
Fresh limes from your own tree are the key.
Lots of stuff coming up in 2011!

Bad Metaphor Monday (now with more board p0rn!)

Recent claims in HeadHighGlassy that now seem foolish in retrospect:
1. The heat. I recently called out the red-wine-only drinking elite by singing the praises of Chardonnay, an overpurchased and overciticised varietal if there ever was one. Sort of like the Jessica Simpson of beverages. Now that it's raining and 48 degrees inside my house, that seems kind of dumb.
2. Establishing a link between swine flu outbreaks and democratic presidents. This one wasn't me, but it's dumb enough to have made its debut on these very (electronic) pages.
Recent claims in HeadHighGlassy I solemnly stand by:
1. A little board porn always takes the edge off a Monday, even if it's posted after midnight EST.
2. Spring brings out the resin tints like colored boards are ants and spring is a honey-covered dipstick.
Exhibit A: a 7'10 egg for Dexter enthusiast, father, and stoked surfer Danny who sent this picture to enchanting glasser Leslie Anderson. A likeness was requested.
An interpretation, in full resin, gloss, and polish was delivered.
Lokbox rail fin boxes+long center box= more possibilities than a lazor hair-removal technician in a room full of my relatives.
Pointbreak foil.
Pointbreak-friendly orange deck.
Pointbreak-destroying 101 FinCo bamboo quads.
Everything in the above picture was made by hand in California. Even the gravel driveway originated less than a stone's throw (sorry) from my house. I shit you not.