Head NW, old man

"Head north, retard". That's what one of the overriding voices in my head commanded me to do. So that time has come. Today I loaded up the rig, strapped snowboards & some emergency surfboards to the rack, and drove past Rincon one last time on my way out of town. Down the 101, out the 126, over to the 14 which turns into the 395, then a right onto the 6 and I find myself spending the night in Ely Fucking Nevada. After getting a budget room I dashed over to a casino and tried to rid myself of a hundo. I was down to my last $2 pull when I won $140. I whittled it down to an even $100. So walked out even...a winner. It's Halloween party weekend and it seems like everybody in the casino is dressed up like smokers.

The Drifter

Still stuck in Bali. Today I saw some monkeys fucking underneath the bridge at Padang Padang. There was a giant, loud commotion and all kinds of monkey screaming. Me and the group of Euros, Brazilians, and Indos scattered around me looked back just in time to behold nature in all it's glory. Every nationality laughed out loud. This all went down after a long, 5 hour surf. I got to the beach during a major downpour and a river was running down the steps and through the cave. I paddled out in poopy water and there was some kind of surf school sticking to the rights. I had the better lefts all to myself for a couple hours. Then an Ozzie and Canadian came over to steal my thunder. It was cool. They weren't getting many and I just picked off the good ones. It just got gnarlier and faster as the tide dropped. Paddled till my arms fell off. Then I smoked a clove, washed really good with soap, stuffed my face with fried noodles, and now I'm internetting. Slothing till I head back later this afternoon.

lack of posts

I'm on the road in Bali, sweating my balls off and surfing my brains out. Today, after an awesome morning sesh at Padang Padang, I cruized up to the local Nirmala to pick up some Johnson's & Johnson's Baby Powder, so things are looking up for the latter issue. Lifesaver, to say the least. After a rough start to the 2010 Tour Of Fail, things are really getting incredible. My L4/5 disc in my back blew up on me the second I hopped aboard the plane at LAX. The first couple days were kind miserable pain wise, but I still surfed mackin Impossibles. It's name is fitting at 9+ feet. I was too stupid to realize what I was getting into for my first go at it. I didn't bring a board long enough to get into the waves appropriately. Took some of the biggest dry reef beatings of my life, but came out of it with nary a scratch and some haul ass waves. The last week's been spent double seshing every day. Padang Padang, Bingin, Uluwatu. It's all incredi. Life is good.

The rage will hopefully continue when I get back in a couple weeks if I haven't gone all Hindu and shit.

tuesday in the park

We had a shady little transaction go down at the local park just now. I showed up a minute early and parked next to either a dead guy or a severely passed out gummer dude. Then Ryan shows up with my new 8'6" vee bottom transitional thing that he shaped. Sofa king stocked! I'm loving the vee these days. Now I get the next couple days to ride the piss outta it. And we've got waves.

D, Mother fucker

We're loading up on Vitamin D around here thanks to the past few days of this heat wave. D-MOTHERFUCKER! My fats a little bronzer. And my mind's chill after a weekend of 90+ degree weather and a bit o' surf. It was good to be surfing and see some old familiar faces. Faces that start popping up once the waves start working. I love this time of year. Water's warm, sand is groomed along our point breaks, and storms are a brewin. To top it, I have a new board that should arrive today and I'll get 2 days to ride it before I leave.

when will this end?

I'm not quite sure what will become of me when my face isn't shoved inside cuntputer screen for 8 fucking hours every stinkin day. It's gonna be incredible to recreate all day long then head to the night jobby job all broken down, bleeding, and exhausted. Hopefully I'll still be full of rage. And hopefully I'll find some inspiration along the way cuz I feel like the last month has been worthless. I've been so focused on organizing the big move and I've been sick, so I haven't done much else. My brain is dead. Today I ran out of internets around 8:43 am. So I've spent the rest of the day clicking every few minutes between Facebook, Surfer Mag message board, and a handful of random blogs wishing that somebody would update their shit. The light at the end of the tunnel is October 3rd. One last delivery run then Bali just over a week away. That's the carrot dangling in front of me.

Support real shapers

First of all, let me quote our furry little friend, the great Paul "Pony Keg" Farell and say..."the sun shines on a dog's ass once in a while". I am the luckiest surfboard shaper ever. With limited skills in virtually all areas, I'm fucking amazed that I can work sandpaper corectly, let alone build a surfboard that rips. Somehow I have done it. I took my new board on some test spins over the last few days on gutless, junky, & foggy waves and the fucker works. It actually works. I started out with the Quad fin setup and hated it. Stupid fucking fins. It seems like I'm equally retarded at riding quads as I am thrusters. My final judgement on Quad Fins will have to wait until I'm able to try it again on real waves. So I switched over to 2+1 and it fucking lit up. Plus I took off the booties and I quit snagging my toes on every pop up. I rode mostly chest/almost-shoulder high crap waves, but it was goooooood. So good, that it's made the final cut to go along to Bali. Out with the Channel Islands Single Fin and welcome aboard, fatso.

So let's break this down. How much did it cost to "shape" a board that works?

Blanks-(I fucked up the first one)5 @ $65 = $325
Materials- Roughly $200
Power Sander-(never used) $35
Planer- $65
Glassing- 4 @ $220= $888
Total $1505

#4

My latest attempt as shaping a surfboard is done and ready to shred. Picked it up from getting glassed yesterday, and I'll take her for a test spin later today. This looks like my most most ridable shape to date. A bit of a tri-plane in the nose, to a single concave in the middle, to a mellow vee out the back. I went wide, about 22", cuz I like it that way. And she's kinda thick at about 2 3/4. Over all it's about 6'2". I love the 2+1 setups cuz you can make big, swooping bottom turns. I'm not sure I've ever smacked the lip, so I'm not trying to fool myself. But I also threw in the quad boxes because I've never ridden a quad. They seem neat.

Jimmy Busey

While in dirty old Mexico last April, we made an afternoon pitstop to el dentisto for mi amigo Jimmy Robb. Dude needed some work done on his chompers and apparently Mexican dentists are having a 80% OFF SALE everyday. Plus we needed some pharmaceuticals stat. So Jimbo took one for the team, sat under some duct taped machines, got drilled, and had some fairly sketchy medical procedure for the benefit of the group. Now that he's back home in Porkland, he's having more work done. He wants to look more like the sexy Gary Busey. It's coming along incredibly. I'll try to find the Mexican waiting room and "before" pics tonight.

I am a patient boy, i wait, i wait, i wait


He's the one they call Dr Feelgood
He's the one that can make you feel alright

Black Dildo of Death

Everything's falling into place nicely. Heading back to the hills means new gear is required to destroy the upcoming La Nina. Even though I don't ride much anymore, my old 2003 Unity is beat and needed replacing. Moby, over at Capita Shredquarters hooked me up with a deal on a Black Snowboard of Death. To be honest, I don't understand much about the new reverse-camber shit, sintered vs extruded bases, sidewalls construction, or whatever else they describe. All I know is that it's got a flex rating of 7, so I'm all good.

the BMW

There ain't shit going on round here except prepping for the vacation and the move back to the Potato State. Go Broncos! Between winding down work, the gym, being sick, and not surfing, I've been busy stuffing my crap in boxes for indefinite storage. I've taken a few loads of this shit over to my buddies barn. The other day, from deep in the barn's bowels, he lifted a dusty tarp and busted out the iZetta Clown Car. It fits in the back of a pickup truck and collects dust most of the year. Finally the sun came out and it was time to burn off the cobwebs. No homo.

The iZetta from Brown Recluse on Vimeo.

"uuuuugh"

I'm on the road today and tomorrow. While I'm spreading the gospel, here's an awesome 6 seconds that I just can't stop laughing at and I have no idea what the hell this is. I can't believe more 4 million people checked this out before I even saw it. My internet powers are a disgrace.