Seems like lots of friends are taking a beating this last couple years. Either random accidents or insurance that doesn't quite cut it for major issues. If you've got some cash burning a hole in your pocket, why not throw it Nick and Cheryl's way? Nick had a brain tumor removed and needs some chemo for a few weeks. Cheryl's taking care of him and their beautiful little girl. It seems like the right thing to do is help them concentrate on healing and not worry about bills. Plus it gives you somewhere good to donate some dough and builds tremendous karma. Clicky clicky....
Take a look at this hippymobile. It looks like what I imagine a patchouli tree looks like. I don't know what this thing is, but I reallllly like it's lurkability. Could be an old icecream truck, I dunno. It's tough to see in the picture, but the driver's seat is basically a tractor seat and it's located in the middle of the rig, about 4 feet from the windshield. There's enough room on the "dashboard" for a couple pygmies to sleep sideways. In the back, behind the driver is a bed with storage underneath. Dude had his skis, boots, helmets, and shit all stacked in their own cubby holes.
This is turning out to be one of the best weeks of the year here in Ketchum, Idaho. First of all, winter came back last night and it's puking snow. Pow, bitches! And second of all, the motherfucking NBS has taken over. The National Brotherhood of Skiers picked Sun Valley, Idaho for their 2012 mini summit group convention thing. They're the best ski group ever. We're way to familiar with old, white douchey skier motherfuckers in this town. Now it's time to bring the fun, and furs, back to skiing.
I'm cruising around the internets trying to narrow down my spring surf trip's board selection when I stumbled upon one of my favorite little clips of stoney tuberidin fun with Wardo.
Getting old can suck a fat one. My L 4/5 disc is a gigantic pussy. It's as strong as wilted celery. The fucking thing originally blew up on me way back in 07 or 08 and I gobbled pills for many months before it finally went dormant. Last sunday it decided to reignite my sciatica, only this time on the left side of my decrepid old, piece of shit body. I'm attacking it with heavy doses of accupuncture, electro stimulation, cupping, slothing, and advanced reverse stretching crap. It's a non-stop battle each and every day just to be able to walk and stand upright.
I'm gearin up for my own little transitional era so I'm scoring a couple new travel boards. Ryan Lovelace shaped me one of them and it's sitting somewhere in Santa Barbara. I'm trying to triangulate a pickup and delivery while I'm sitting here in Idaho. It's called a Throughull. Not sure what that name is all about but it looks like a stoney, single-fin mentality. I can't wait to crank it's first bottom turn to high-speed wall ride roughly around April 28, 2012. Learn some shit about it here...
At the end of ski season, I'm guessing that I'll move back to Santa Barbara. But who fucking knows what I'll really do cuz I'm a bit scattered right now. I'd like to move into a 30 foot Airstream that's parked somewhere quiet. I may already have an avocado orchard that I can live the dream. Trick out the Airstream with Pergo floors....rip out the stupid shit and add more space....no TV except for videos...hook up an outdoor shower....rent or buy a porta potty for emergency purposes otherwise piss in nature....set up a Home Depot shed for gear storage...a Goal Zero Yeti 1250 to power everything....and a deck out front for chillin and BBQ. Just need to figure out water storage without a hose.
Drove like a jerk through a raging blizzard in Southern Idaho and especially going over Rattlesnake Pass into Utah just to get to Salt Lake City before they closed the road. Passing semi's all sketchy style and shimmying around weaving in and out of traffic in the all wheel drive Lezmobile. Damn near met Cyber-bro Forrest if we hadn't been delayed getting out of Ketchum. Then dorked around the trade show yesterday slapping high fives. I broke my New Years resolution, but it was inevitable. I wasn't going to give nuggs all year. You know, the faggoty fist pump thing that all white people use now. The second I saw some suit-and-tie-wearing douchey Republican Candidate use I knew it was time to stop it in 2012. Well I ran into Mother Fucking Ed from Thule and immediately broke my promise to myself. Such a failure. At around 2pm, I finally checked my phone that I was ignoring, and the news that Sarah Burke had died was all over the nets. Kinda teared up a bit for someone I never knew, never met, and never followed until she smacked head in a half pipe. I feel so bad for her family and people who loved her, who I imagine had decide to give up and pull the plug due to lack of blood to the brain. Been there and felt life slip away from a loved one and it's a miserable feeling that's been with me ever since. Life is incredible and should be lived to it's fullest every day. Just a really sad story. I regrouped, cleaned myself up, and threw out a few more high fivers to old snow bros then stopped at In-N-Out in Centerville before we drove north into another fucking shitstorm of snow to make it back for 18inches of fresh pow on top of 8 inches yesterday which was on top of 5 from the day before. This is SUN Valley, not Mt Baker, we don't get it stacked up like that very often. It urned into an all-time pow day today. It was worth every second to get back home. Good things lay ahead.
Storms they are a coming. After a mostly man-made winter so far, we're starting to get some snow fall. Stoney pow days lay ahead. But they'll have to wait a couple days cuz I'm heading down to Salt lake City for Outdoor Retailer tomorrow after a morning sesh. Sounds like it could be a little sketchy in the Southern Idaho/Northern Utah zone, hope they don't close that road. Gotta get to the Salt Palace and find a jobby job to bring me back to fucking California.
When I was a little dude growing up and going to school, we were always told to "follow your heart and do what you love for a living." I like snowboarding, surfing, traveling, rubbing up against the ladies, and napping on warm beaches. There is absolutely no way I could make a living doing any of the things I love because I am not particularly great at any of those. If there were a contest for the Best 2-Day Hangover, then maybe I could be the best at something.
What if you kinda suck at all the things you love? THEY say you become a Team Manager. Well, what if you'd suck at that....then what? What's the next step down?
My next step down has always been to keep moving and experiencing new shit. I was "hyper" little shit as a kid, but today we diagnose those rats as ADD and give them drugs. So maybe I've still got ants in my pants. Some meditation and participating in sports daily have gained me some focus, but my mind is almost always wandering and dreaming of bigger, better adventures. Hopefully something will soon take root and I'll figure out my special purpose in life(see below). Besides the 7 consecutive years in Santa Barbara, I haven't lived in one town for more than 3 years. And now I'm getting a powerful urge to uproot again after only 15 months here. So I've been hittin up bros and semi-bros worldwide to see if they have ideas for Living The Dream in the tropics. I shot an email to my old buddy in Indo named Mink and got an inspiring series of emails. The dude is an electrician in LA who's nearing retirement in his late forties or early fifties. He spends half the year in Bali getting shacked outta his mind and importing a few surf products. When the shit hits the fan, he sells the house and expats to the Bukit. I like that plan. He sent me an the following email today....
Hey Jeff ,
It sounds like you got what I meant , the main " key " is to keep it simple . Live below your means , but always have what you need . We can want anything but don't really need much to be content and happy inside , unless the lure of the Rage of the Machine of society sucks you in and brainwashes you into believing you have to wear a certain shoe brand or drive a certain kind of car or ride a certain model board to achieve validation along with everybody else,that's where the brainwash comes in ,by everybody trying to live like and be like everybody else,it keeps feeding the " machine " , when you step off that treadmill , and watch everybody marching slavely on , it's like their mind has been taken over by society . The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their state of mind, just look at Steve Jobs , he had a vision and went for it ! Kind of like us with our travels ,eh. When we create harmony in our minds and hearts, we will find it in our lives . The inner creates the outer ... ALWAYS . " not by the clothes we wear " , "The Kingdom of Heaven is Within " That way you will always stay light on your feet , easy to move from place to place to absorb the culture and people on the planet earth ! Talk to you soon,
Brother Mink
Fucken A, man. Fucken A. It doesn't answer any of my questions, and he didn't paint a good picture of working outside the US. But at least I got a little stoked to hit the road and risk stability. It'll all work out somehow....or I just might come knocking to sleep on your couch in the future.
My piece-of-shit body only needs to last for another 8.5 years. I'll be 50 and my life will go downhill real fast and I won't care. I plan on getting back on the bottle and wasting away into oblivion. I'll probably need a replacement for my 1997 hip replacement. So walking upright without crutches might be a distant dream. The good news is that I should have most of my hair and roughly 85% of my real teeth. My shoulders have both been broken and are a bit outta whack which means the rotator cuffs are at risk of being ratfucked and my bursa sack impingement is always just a few hundred yards of freestyle swimming away. SO with all that to look forward to, I'm on a mission to cram a lifetime of fun into a few more good years. This means is that I NEEEEEED to surf or snowboard EVERY FUCKING DAY until September 11, 2020. Every day I miss doing one or the other leads to an overload of regret. Stack up a few weeks (or a complete season of shitty snow like we're going through right now), and I might just snap. I'll disappear somewhere tropical until the resources run out to catch up on missed opportunites. Right now I am getting near this desperate scenario. We don't have diddley squat for snow....nobody really does. There is a glimmer of hope next week when the high pressure cock block breaks down and we get a solid jet stream of death shitting on us. Please god, in all your glory, let it shit on us. Or not. Fuck it. I just ordered a new surfboard that should be ready for Indo in a few short weeks. The dollar goes real far down there and their surf season is just around the corner.
