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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
