Surfing Contests, Practice and Skills Improvement

Sunset over Its, 2/11/16.

Today is the Titans of Mavericks surf contest up in Half Moon Bay and it is nothing short of amazing to watch the waves these guys ride.

More so since I've become more and more of a surfer as I've progressed through my SUP evolution from flat water cruising and exploration to a mostly dedicated SUP surfer. I can't lie, its still really nice and a different kind of fun to go touring without worrying about swell, other people and everything else.

Something I am thinking about and realizing more and more is that I need to practice my in the water skills more. Not my on the water skills, I'm pretty good at catching waves, steering through crowds of people (though I will almost always seek to find emptier spots since my envelope to catch a wave is substantially larger than a surfer's, also a source of their gripiness about SUP's in general). In the last week, I've had a couple of getoffs that have resulted in my board becoming a weapon and smashing into me.

The first was when I tumbled forward off the wave and the board came down on top of my shoulders with the initial hit concentrating on the left side. Aside from some tenderness when I touch it, there's been no problems from that one. The other was from a fairly short outing yesterday where I got tumbled and my board bashed me in the chest. Again, no immediate harm or pain, just a little wind knocked out and then complicated by getting caught in the wash zone for a couple of minutes.

We have another three day weekend ahead and good weather on tap. We'll be getting some new booties first but then we will be spending a good chunk of time making sure they work!

Oh and here's a short video I shot with my chest mounted cam over the weekend. This will give you a decent idea of what its like to strap on a leash and head out into the surf on a big SUP!

Recap Time

Used SuperPhoto on a photo to make this awesome watercolor.

I'd thought about possibly trying to do a monthly recap here but just going back a few days of my G+ posts makes that kind of unfeasible. So I think maybe I'll do a recap of the best posts from the last week or so, give or take.

In honor of Alan Rickman's untimely death the other day, I watched Dogma (full movie on YouTube) last night for the first time in years and it was still very funny (though, as noted by a friend, a little too clever for its own good).

Politics
Netflix Founder Drops $100 million to Join Billionaire Crusade to Privatize Our Public Schools 

I went to a Donald Trump rally and saw a man wearing a plastic bag as a shirt. (with images, tweets) - this is both fascinating and really pretty disturbing and doesn't even include the newest addition to the Chucklehead Sideshow that is Trump 2016, the Freedom Girls (warning, link is to a YouTube video I can't help but believe is performance art but is apparently real)!

MMA/UFC Links
Nik Lentz issues "non-negotiable" demands to BJ Penn

The Conor Ultra Super Mega Hype Train Rolls On - Coach: After 'warm-up fight' against Rafael Dos Anjos, Conor McGregor could make a run at the UFC welterweight belt. Conor will get destroyed by RDA and any dreams he has of multiple titles will be pounded out of him. And, for the record, Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar both have fully legitimate beefs with the UFC capitulating to McGregor's bullshit demands. Defend your new strap or give it up.

And, lastly in mma news, Chris Weidman is 'really happy' he lost to Luke Rockhold at UFC 194

IKEA Kura double decker playhouse - epic makeover time!

Ned Overend is the Champion Cyclist Who Never Grows Old - a great article about a guy who was kicking butt on the trails when I was a kid and is STILL kicking butt on the trails today! The article includes some good training tips (HIIT yo!).

New Word:
Testimoney - paid for testimony, duh!

New Recent Videos:
Heavy Surf Pounds Its Beach
Washed Out Stairs to Its Beach
SUP Surfing Fall and a Not Fall
Some of the Big Swell Hitting Santa Cruz
A Coupla Waves in Cowells

Videos I've watched:
Santa Cruz Tsunami Up Close 2011
Ice Cube, Kevin Hart and Conan Help a Student Driver
AK-47 Underwater at 27,450 fps
Eddy Grant - Electric Avenue
Carp Attack [Carpe Diem]
Lego Mindstorms Bridge Layer

See ya in around a month or so!

Time to Drop Some Links

We got some unusually large surf this last weekend and Tradewinds HD captured some in some rather gorgeous HD.

Haley Viloria Contortion - need to have your mind messed with just by watching some one do yoga? Yeah, this'll do it.

Congratulations to Santa Cruz's Luke Rockhold for his dominating win over Chris Weidman this last weekend at UFC 194! Some highlights from the fight.

Here's Where Gun Laws Stand In Your State - this helps sort out what states to avoid like the gun plagued wastelands they are (oh hai, Texas and Floriduhhhhh). Careful though, this site may make you think we live in a giant beehive with their hexagon state shapes.

Walk Around the World at Verdenskortet - a Danish landscaping project that's global in scope but not global in scale. This is really kind of awesome!

Patriots' Tom Brady not in the mood to answer questions on Trump - Starting to see why so many people find Tom Brady to be a near complete asshole who just happens to be really good at football.

We may not be our associations but we definitely can and should be judged by who we choose to call friend. Calling a screaming fascist your friend ain't too fucking smart.

Samuel Bernier and Andreas Bhend Collaborate on the next next-level Ikea hack - they take two Frosta stools apart and use a 3D printer to make a few choice bits and voila, they end up with a rather slick looking kid's balance bike!

The 25 Most Florida Things that happened in Florida in 2015 - read these and weep from laughing so hard.

Feynman's Trick to Learn Anything Faster - famous physicist Richard Feynman has always kept a "Things I Don't Know" notebook and actively seeks to add to it while answering the things he's already written in it.

Verizon Exec in Charge of TV Services Admits She Cut the Cord - when you can't even keep your executives as customers, your business model is dying rapidly.

Instagram Husband - if you are one, run, if you know one, give him some running shoes and hold the door for him.

And, finally, a few of my own photos from the last couple of weeks

Google took a storm photo and applied some filters to it and dropped me a note about it. I like the effect it added to what was a wild, stormy day out on the coast.

 A quick snap of a surfer on his way out to test his mettle in the thumping winter swell from this last weekend. This is pretty much straight out of the camera without any cropping or filtering, kind of proud of that.

And this last shot was on a late afternoon walk along West Cliff, we'd just watched a SUPer catch a nice wave past us and I noticed how pretty the sky was above Cowells.

Santa Cruz, Love This Town!

 This was my changing room on Sunday when I went out SUPing and SUP surfing. My friend came down to try her hand at SUPing again, she'd tried it the day before, but she chickened out due to aggressive waves and her lack of wetsuit.
Which was okay by me, I got a good cruising paddle in, watched some top notch kayak surfing competition action at the Lane and then spent a few hours SUP surfing among the hordes of other noobs.
Yep, I'm a noob and raw and not very good at surfing at all yet. Yet.
Sorry, SUP surfing. I'm planning on getting a surfboard as well but I need to concentrate on getting one new set of skills in the books before jumping into another sport. Maybe. I've got some feelers out for a loaner board to get rolling on.

This next photo was one I took while out for a bike ride last week. Saw this little family all in their wetsuits, all on two SUPs and looking like they were headed out for adventure. I pulled over, snapped a couple of pics and then they "battled" until the girls SUP tipped over and they tumbled in. Victory was declared and they all laughed and it was just another little happy scene in our happy little surf town.

And here we have a tarted up (that's Fenspeak for thrown through Snapseed filters to make it purtier than originally snapped).

This has been my regular stop in spot for the last year on my way to work. I like to take a moment to appreciate the splendor of the area I have chosen to live in.

Many more images on tap, this place is positively over-flowing with photo ops.

Hot Damn, Back Again!

Like most technical repairs, if you dick around with it enough, you'll either really break it and have to call in an expert or you'll fix it and look like a fucking genius.

Guess who has two thumbs and looks like a fucking genius? This guy. Don't ask me what I did, I did a whole bunch of stuff and the blog is back. Looks like it badly needs to get updated though, huh.

Let's start with some newer images.

Taken during an impromptu beach trip a few weeks ago.

Looks like I still need to fix a few broken pipes, can't access newer images, at least not on this computer (shared house computer).

Will add more tomorrow. It has been a good while since a good update has gone up here. I had a good weekend. Gonna write about it tomorrow.

Living in Paradise Means Lots of Paradisaical Photos

Here are some recent photos I've taken in the Santa Cruz area. Most have been tarted up in Snapseed or by Google's Auto-Awesome.

We had our first really wet weekend of the year with heavy rain most of Saturday morning and then another storm on Sunday morning. It made for good indoor playtime, we played video games, Lego, Minecraft, watched movies and ate party food!

Also, the three SUPers in the harbor? That's my buddy, Sean and his daughter (her first time!) along with Trudi, the lady who owns the SUP Shack.

The boys had almost no complaints about the weekend and I got out yesterday morning to take some photos of the storm and enjoy a little chaos!

Sunsets and Foggy Mornings in Santa Cruz

Is it any wonder that this town has so deeply set its hooks into my soul? The two images below are proof of the sheer epic beauty of Santa Cruz and I would put this town's scenery up against any in the world. The two shots are of Its Beach on West Cliff just north of the world famous Steamer Lane surf spot.

Its is especially nice because dogs are welcome to run free and have fun frolicking. There are people and dogs galore in both. 

The pano above is above Seacliff State Beach in Aptos before 8 am from earlier this week when the fog was thick everywhere on the coast except right here. And it was beautiful!

And then there was this

Took this last night towards the end of a bike ride around town and out along West Cliff.

Some of the Reasons Why I Love Santa Cruz

All of these are mine except the last one. Its easy to take a gorgeous picture when you have a gorgeous model with some many beautiful angles and poses.

Cowell's and the wharf.

Today in Santa Cruz looking at the wharf from the other side of town.

Found an iOS app that takes photos and planetizes them for you.

This pano makes the river look way bigger than it is.

Not mine but wow-freakin'-wee!

Looking at the World

I live in one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. This is not by accident, this is by choice. I could live in Podunk, Iowa for a third of the expenses I have here but well less than a third the quality of life. And what is the point of that?

I took this series of shots last week at the midpoint of a ride after work. This is the view looking back towards the Boardwalk from the cliff between Seabright and Main beaches in Santa Cruz.

It is one of my favorite places anywhere and I love that it is a mere 3 miles by bike path away from my house.

Another shot from about the same time, maybe even the same evening stopover. For some reason I really like the bird dominating the frame, the gulls love this spot too because of the hard winds. They get to fly all matrix-style with hovering, flying backwards and doing wicked wingovers, even the big ol' pelicans get into it!







Another recent shot from down near the river mouth. Took this yesterday afternoon while out riding bikes with my boys (tail wind out and head wind back does NOT make for a happy boy!).

We are in the final stretch of the school year which is good and bad. Looking at summer activities and things to do is fun.

And there are always the projects, the side projects, design projects, websites, parodies and all the other things we do to keep ourselves too busy! But more on those as they gel up more.

Playing a Little Catch Up

So, here's a quick update on what I've been up to since the last post.

Natural Bridges State Park with just a wee bit of saturation.

Yacht Harbor Bubble - I've been able to ride my bike more and toured through my old stomping grounds yesterday after work. It was nice to roll over places I've spent so much time on before.

Fuzzy SC Boardwalk at night.

For a number of reasons, I am unable to provide much detail on what, exactly, I've been up to.

Here are some things I've been thinking about and talking about behind private doors on the internets.

Purity balls, in which girls 'gift their virginity' to their fathers until marriage, sweeping America

How an Under-Appreciated iOS 7 Feature Will Change the World - this is a brilliant idea that I hope gets baked into all devices moving forward to extend networks seamlessly out into the boonies.

Taking homophobia and applying it to religiophobia FTW.

This American Bro: A Portrait of the Worst Guy Ever - to which I would add, friends don't let friends become or behave like bro's. Bro's need to be exiled from society and left to starve in the wilderness, they diminish all of society by their overt and inane douchery. Yes, I know we'd end up losing Las Vegas entirely (the Bro capital of the world save Spring Break when it becomes LAUDERDALE!!!1!).

Fun at the park.

Girl Genius - a highly entertaining webcomic by the Foglio brothers of Dragon magazine fame from waaaaaaaay back in the day. Really entertaining stuff.

Not sure how all the graphics are going to play in the post. May have to make some adjustments. But I've added stuff I've reshared because I strongly believe the sentiment expressed. The bonuses for the do-nothing greedheaded assholes on Wall St. exceed ALL the earnings made by minimum wage employees. And somehow it is the lowest rung that continues to shoulder the heaviest burden while the rich get richer.

Something has to change. We cannot continue to expand the chasm between haves and have nots. The have nots simply will not stand for it beyond a point and there will be a rising up and a culling.

Greed is the problem. Not caring for the poor. GREED.

What Life Should Be Like

Like this

And like this (taken 2/21/14)

Not like this (taken 2/21/14)

Any questions?

More Linkage

I'm waiting for a server to come back up so I've got a few minutes to post some stuff up here again. I know, twice in a month? What is this? 2003?

First up is this rather amazingly awesome Shipping container orphanage in South Africa. Twenty eight "worthless" shipping containers transformed into a very cool home for orphans!

The photo to the right is from the most recent edition of the Adventure Sports Journal and includes not one but two of my photos from last year's Santa Cruz Mountain Bike Festival! This year's festival is going to be on the 14th and 15th of April and should build on the ever more epic festivals from year's past.





This graphic passed through my G+ stream and blew it up! I reshared it but so did 33 others from the original post.

Look, I don't hate religion but I definitely hate it when people use their religious beliefs to act like assholes towards anyone.

And you think the Pope stepped down for anything other than a massive criminal scandal? Guess what? Pope Palpatine is probably going to get charged with sex crimes. Man of God indeed.

I don't hate religion but I do hate the assholes who lead virtually all religious groups as if they are some pious mouthpieces for God, they are not, they are crooked liars fleecing the gullible and stupid.

On to other news: We are entering the longest day off free zone in the school calendar. We have, as of right now, 29 days of school in a row without a break aside from the weekends. It will be a slog. Oh wait, I'm going to be taking a couple of days off in March so, uhhh, nevermind or something.

I've been adding new words to my Fictionarium if you're so inclined to read them.
And there's usually something going on over on my Walmart is Pure Evil blog too. But maybe don't visit if you're offended by the gratuitous use of the word FUCK in graphics, there's a powerful graphic posted right now that doesn't pull punches about what it means to actually shop at Walmart (hint, it ain't good). And I call Walmart, China Direct in my head now too.
And I still post to my What Not To Do blog as well if you're into reading cautionary tales about the idiotic ways that other people get arrested or killed.

And that ought to do it for now. We'll see what the week brings, it's all raining and cold and nasty today and I'm working a double so there's that. But at least everyone in my house is healthy again, no fun with everyone on antibiotics and feeling like total dookie!

Target Acquired

I am almost officially signed on to compete in my second sprint triathlon race. It is the Santa Cruz Sprint Triathlon on August 9th, it consists of a 600-700 yard ocean swim, a 12 mile bike ride and then a 3.2 mile run. My buddy, Paul, is going to be racing in it as well so that will be fun. My wife has declined the challenge because of the swim portion which will definitely be the most challenging aspect of the race for me as well.

The best part about this race is that much of it takes place on West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz. One of my all-time favorite places in the whole world and not just because there is usually a tailwind coming back from Natural Bridges State Park that makes the blast towards the Boardwalk feel like it is at warp speed (though it definitely does not hurt).

I will probably end up doing this race on my mountain bike refitted with slick road tires as I do not see a new road bike (nor do I really want one if the truth is told) in my near future. Maybe a full wetsuit and definitely some new and better running shoes but I've already got most of the gear I will need.

And, with a new race target acquired, I am now automatically compelled to kick my lax ass back into gear and back into shape. I will freely admit to having slacked off badly after the Avia. The lack of a goal to work towards is a strong motivator. I will likely start looking for my next race midway through the training for this one. Maybe September or October but definitely no ocean swims then!

One other really cool thing about this particular race is that, once I'm signed up, there are free Tuesday evening workouts to join in on. This includes transition practices and open water swims! And the more comfortable I am going in, the better my overall time and satisfaction will be. Racing and finishing is fun and all but now I'm going to start setting higher and higher goals. I want to shoot for a top 25% in my age group finish and that's a pretty good sized improvement from my 33rd of 72 at the Avia.

Stay tuned for delightful training updates, epiphanies and, I'm sure, the occasional owie.

Glowy Goodness

We went to the Santa Cruz Yacht Harbor Lighted Boat Parade last night and had a really good time among the good sized crowd of festive Cruzans who were out. I also got a chance to take a bunch of photos on the night setting on my camera and captured some of the boats really nicely, as the pic demonstrates.

Grady has also recently shown a strong interest in photography lately and took a few dozen photos too.

I also tried out the iPhone application called Night Camera which uses the accelerometer in the phone to automatically take a pic when the phone is still. It actually works very well once you get used to the idea of not having direct shutter control. I will see if any of the pics can be added to this post when I get a moment (I'm writing this on the downstairs computer so I can keep an eye on the boys).

Among the fun things we did was to walk all the way out to the lighthouse which had been strung with lights to create a glowing caricature of a lighthouse. The waves were big too and it was kind of neat to be out there at night. There were also a couple of kayakers with what looked like converted hot air balloon burners on the fronts of their kayaks. I pretty much assumed that they were Burning Men and had it confirmed later on. Grady got freaked out when they passed by the dock and sent out a wicked dual blast of flame nearly twenty feet in the air. I thought they were awesome but it was a big too much for Grady.

I think the highlight of the night for the boys were a pair of remote control boats (on RC trucks) that had been outfitted with this really neat stuff called CoolNeon that glows like neon but is a wire that can be shaped into most anything you want. One ship was set up like a pirate ship complete with not one but two disco balls on top of the masts. The owner explained the Cool Neon technology and how easy it was to use, he also invited us to the Whale Lighting Ceremony at the Seymour Long Marine Lab tonight where he would have two articulating sharks with the Cool Neon on them too.

Fire in the Mountains

Wildfire in Santa Cruz Mountains prompts some evacuations and has cast an enormous cloud of smoke across the entire Santa Cruz area.

My car, parked in the driveway and a good thirty miles from the fires, was covered in ash this morning.

There's a thin layer of blue skies just at the horizon and then nothing but brownish dark clouds above. Its kind of a bizarre sight really.

There's a decent chance that area schools are going to be shutdown because of the ash falling all over the area. In fact, my principal is announcing that parents may be coming to pick up kids due to the smoke and ash.

And it will get worse before it starts to get better.

[Update: A local news blogger, Brittney Gilbert, has picked up the photo and is running it on the CBS 5 Eye on Blogs! Also, the full sized image can be found in my Flickr photostream.

Veteran's Day Family Fun

We had a fun holiday today and took advantage of the amazing fall weather we get in Santa Cruz. It took some effort but we loaded up the car with two bikes, the Wee Ride and the Trail-a-Bike.

We parked outside of Natural Bridges on the northern end of town and pedaled down to West Cliff, followed it all the way down to the lighthouse (with the wind) and then back out to Natural Bridges.

Due to technical difficulties, both Sully and Grady rode with me. Sully in his perch on the Wee Ride with a great view and well protected inside my arms. Grady trailing behind me on his one-wheeled Trail-a-Bike. His legs aren't long enough to pedal but he's trying. And he gets to learn how to hang on and lean and get comfortable on two wheels. But he is alot closer to needing his own bike to learn on his own.

But we'll cross that bridge when we have to. For now, it is alot easier to keep us all moving in the same direction together.

We had a nice snack break in the crow's nest above the beach and both the boys were ready to go riding some more. Which makes this two wheeling poppa very happy! I shot some video of the ride but it doesn't get us with on the bike, just the path in front of us.

A quick thought about walkers, they seem to tend to expand all the way across a path if they can. And single walkers will almost invariably walk down the middle of the path regardless of oncoming or overtaking traffic. Kind of odd but it was alright. No close calls at all is a good ride (and no scratches to allow the skin eating bacteria in to eat me alive, Su).

Really a perfect way to spend a day off for Veteran's Day.

What a Beautiful, Sunny Day Up in the Mountains

I will admit that I wasn't super thrilled about the early rise and roll today to get out to the Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge 2007 put on by Santa Cruz County Cycling Club. The coffee helped, as did the 40 miles of twisty fun empty roads on my moto! And I got this shot and many more, I'm still working through the mass and should (or maybe might) end up with upwards of 180 keeper shots. Maybe. Maybe not.

First off, I cannot imagine a more beautiful place to grind out 66.4 or 100 miles (depending on which loop you choose to ride). Some of the vistas along 236 above Big Basin National Park are really and truly astonishing.

Second, there were hundreds and hundreds of places to choose from to photograph the riders. The one I chose with the boys the other day ended up not being satisfactory and I changed to another place. I changed from a descent to an ascent out of a corner with good sun and a good turnoff to get my motorcycle well off the road.

The next step, after culling the out of focus deleters and other unmentionable miscues, will be to upload all of the thumbnails to my Backprint.com store for reprint sales. But that will have to wait until tomorrow as I am bushed.

Oh yeah, by the way, my pro photography website is called CarpeVivo Photography. Stop by and take a look if you're looking for prints from today's race.