Local Slab

I've spoken of the Local Slab quite often in this blog. It's a fun wave. Can get super hectic. Especially when doing its thing. The take off spot is a 10 foot square, and 20+ guys that know the wave well, are all battling for the perfect spot to sit. Two feet off and you're toast. Even if you are in the right spot, you're constantly butting shoulders or arms with others, while angling and air dropping into and hopefully under the lip. There are about 5 guys that surf it regularly that have it truly wired. They grew up surfing it and now it's pretty much second nature for them. I'm blown away at what those guys make. Also, how easy they make it look. Here is a sequence of who I would consider the King. Yea, there are guys who have surfed it better, or more agressively. Day in, Day out, Todd Thornton is always the guy in the spot.

A New Tradition Begins

No tree. Well, not yet. Sounds kinds odd, I know. This year we have yet to put up the Christmas Tree. Yea, we've heard about it. The grems are snapping. No presents wrapped. Yup, none. No wrapped presents to fondle and shake. Sounds kinda Grinch-like. We've got cards and knick-knacks up, but that is about it. This year we've decided to start a new tradition. We start on Christmas Eve. Christmas will be a two day event, starting in about 30 minutes. The tree goes up, all the decorations come out. Still, all the presents will stay out of site until Santa comes tonight. I'm looking forward to all the work that will go into this tradition in the next 36 hours. I can't wait to see the looks on the kids faces tomarrow morning. Hope everyone has a Very Merry Christmas.

This is what it's all about

Call me a dork, but I still feel this song. 25 years later. Yea, I was 16 at the time, so it was my generation. When I hear this song it makes me forget about all the BS that surrounds Christmas. All the Bakugan's, Nintendo DS's, and even the new shiny surfboards sitting under the tree, that us spoiled brats spend so much time pondering. It reminds me how fortunate every one of us is. That fact that we even have a computer, so we can read someone else's mindless blog babble. So, give a dollar to that guy selling oranges on the offramp (just this one time), drop a toy off at the toy drive, or volunteer at the local homeless kitchen. Have a Merry Christmas and thanks for visiting over the last year.

High Performance Hand Alaia's

Well, not really. Thats just what "The Justin" calls em. He thinks it would get the Alaia Community all riled up if we call em that. These are all ready for shipping and I rarely have this many at the same time, so I figured I'd take the opportunity for some photo's. On another note, but not really, remember to take your fins out of your truck and put them in the family cruiser whenever you've got to drop the gremlins off at school, prior to sliding. Today, I forgot. Surf was pretty fun, but so fucking perfect for High Performance Hand Alaia'ing. Left Wanting once again.

One Turn

I like a lot of things about surfing. I love to Shortboard, longboard, Handplane, fish (thats surfing, not the boring rod and pole thing), and I occasionally find a day when I watch the SUK's and think that it is the best board for the conditions. I also enjoy watching Pro Contests.  It helps me keep irrational dreams alive.  To be that good at one thing, one of the best, all of us have dreamed at some point in our lives that we could experience that.  It keeps us alive.  Of course it's better to be good at many things, but that dream is still powerful.   Most people seem to lose interest in the pro contest scene in thier 30's, but for me, it's always been inspiring to see what those guys can do, especially under the pressure that they are. It's one thing for someone to boost a sick air when out freesurfing, but quite another when their are so many things riding on them sticking it. Pro surfing has been bumped up a few notches in the last few years. You play by the Damian Hardman rulebook, and in these days you'll make it no where near the top 100. You do well, you keep going, you keep your sponsors, you keep traveling the world on someone else's dime. You flail, and you gots to start thinking about what you are really gonna do with your life. It's been well publiziced lately how many of the younger guys are having a problem with finding/keeping sponsors in this economy. It's hard to feel sorry for em when so many people are out of jobs and so many are being sent back to a new war. With that, everyone has their own set of circumstances to grow by. One may learn about life from living six months in a fox hole, while another may become a good person by having to carry a six board coffin through the airport after surfing one heat in crumbly onshore surf. (oh wait, onshore is the new offshore.) OK he lost in perfect surf. I don't know, maybe that is worse. Regardless, it's all learning. So, where am I going with all this babble. I was watching the Sunset contest last week. It was big and pretty unruly. Not clean at all.

No visions of the perfect MR style wounded gull sweeping turns, connecting the peak to the inside. Just, big, ugly, mad ocean. It's the last qualifying contest of the year. It was in the round of 64 I believe. Jordy Smith was in a heat with 3 other guys. Jordy is already on tour and pretty much in position to stay. One of the other three is on the bubble to qualify. He's gotta keep going or he's gonna have to grind away for another year. Jordy is in second with a minute to go, the other guy that needs the score is in third. He needs a measly 3 point ride to pass Jordy. Basically stand up and make one turn. Seems easy enough. Unless you are talking about huge, unruly Sunset. Seconds tick away and it seems to be pretty much wrapped up. With 10 to go, the guy starts to paddle for a wave, lifts his hands off the rails with less than 2 seconds, stands up, drops in, one average sweep under the lip, wave closes out, and he straightens for the beach. Now we go to commercial. After we watch some spoiled kid pull into a perfect tube in Indo, wearing his 10 way stretch trunks, which happened to make it so he could tweak ever so slightly and pull under the lip, we go back to the scores. 3.7. He moves on. Jordy is out. The qualifier needed to get at least get third in his next heat to qualify for the tour. I didn't stay to watch and see if he did. To me the point was made. It could have went the other way.  I sat and pondered this for a while. What it would be like to have your whole world turned upside down within a matter of seconds. I guess it's all happened to us to some extent. Some more than others. The one that comes to mind is the guy who recently lost his wife and two young daughters when the military plane took out his house.

Such a catastrophe. Everyone has their horrors, this guy enough to fill a stadium. I hope that someday he will find something in this that helps him. For me, much like the fledgling qualifier above, it all happened in "One Turn". It wasn't surfing, it was skiing. 20+ years ago. But, thats another story all together.