Saturday, August 17, 2013

Slow

Work has been so slow that the bank account has been on the decline for several months. It's difficult to separate out the expenses that relate directly to new home ownership from the expenses of everyday life. Either way, the trajectory causes me to take pause. I haven't driven to the beach in awhile. I did take a ride to very small Linda Mar with JO one morning. It was worth the dip for the exercise and the friendship, but not much else. I haven't taken the kid out for a surf in awhile, and I don't see it happening anytime soon.
I took a low paying part time job to help fill up the bank account. It's not enough to make up for zero work from the main job. I hope that stops happening. If it does, I'll have to find a new job. The low pay job is reliable though, I can count on those hours every week, which is something the main job doesn't give me. The wife is going to Europe this fall with family, and I'm staying home by choice. I though it would save us enough money that I could go on a surf trip, but with the bank account slipping, I have a grand excuse to not plan anything.
The first few days of this week I didn't have work. I should have done anything of a list I keep in my head, but for the most part I stayed home and did very little. I think it's true that our animal instinct is to lay low whenever we can. To reserve energy for times when it's needed to survive. This instinct is short sighted and doesn't blend well with community living. There are things I want that I need to act to achieve, but I don't take action as often as I easily could. I would like to, but I don't. Its like a silly thing I like to say, "I'd like to know how to play the guitar, but I don't want to learn to play the guitar."
There's been a internet streaming of a contest at Teahapoo. I've been enjoying watching it live because the slow pace of waiting for waves is more familiar that the hard cuts and loud music in surf movies. I also enjoy watching the pro surfers get waves that for me would be my best ever, but they score very low on. A good score for this contest comes when they make waves that look impossible. I'd like to go there to surf some day, but I know I couldn't handle it right now. I would need to take a month or more to get into shape for it. Of course fall in California is right around the corner, I should get in shape for that!

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

The Lower Limit -- And Dale

Two part-er today.
Last Friday I headed out to Quatro with JZ mid-day. The south swell that hit Wednesday was all but gone, and the one coming Sunday was not quite showing itself. The tide was mid and rising and the crowd was mellow. I took out the 5GF and luckily I was wearing the usual trimmed UDeeTs, because the waves were small and weak. I caught several 1ft waves that hardly broke, and a few 2-3ft waves of somewhat better quality. It was interesting to feel just how small a wave could be ridden on the mat, and how soft was too soft. I wished for the Neumattic, which is still awaiting repair.

And about that repair, I emailed Dale more than a month ago and have gotten no response. I started asking around about him and nobody has heard from him in a few years at least. I did a deeper internet search and created my own story from the bits. In my head his sudden leap from obscurity to mat maker fame caught him off guard. Around 2006 he was in bad health recovering from a heart attack. Combine these two stressors and he didn't fill every order which he collected pre-payment for. There has been some rumblings out there from polite complaints to calling of names. I figure he stepped out of the limelight and (I like to believe) he is only making mats for a close group of mat aficionados.

Also did a quickie at a new spot on Monday. I'm not going to name it since it's somewhere not many people have on their radar. I'll say as a not to self that it's one of the closer spots to the inlaws, and where JZ had his after wedding party. The small south and clean winds threw a few nice waves over the well formed sandbar before the rising tide drowned it. I was told by Brent that normally by this time of year the sand builds a bar over there more, but it didn't this year. It was fun, and it's always fun to hike to surf. I wish I caught more waves though.