Feeling Blankity Blank

Steamer Lane from on high, a cam snap from video I shot with my 3DR Solo drone. Here's a direct link to the video this is from.

I'm going to start doing more flying and videowork and expect to be posting more videos to YouTube.

Here's a link to my channel, if you're down, give a sub and help me get to that fabled 100 subscribers number that'll empower me to choose my own special, custom URL.

Beyond this, life goes on. We celebrated Sully's 11th birthday this last weekend with a long and occasionally epic Nerf war. In the run up to his birthday we acquired many, many new (to us usually, most are used) Nerf blasters. To the degree that we now have a rather large arsenal that requires upkeep to prevent it from completely taking over the living room.

And I'm still getting out and SUP surfing as much (almost) as I can. I'm mostly sticking to Indicators, Middle Peak and Steamer Lane these days as Cowells' generally meager waves are either too crowded or there's just not enough of them. Links to SUP Surfing videos as well, mostly mine but occasionally mixing in another SUP video as need be.

Next up is summer break and lots of time off from work and time to spend with kids. Summer plans include trying to get out and camp again, we didn't go at all last summer and I missed it. Maybe even some bike camping if we can make that work.

Weekend Recap

A sunny morning stopover always makes for a good start to the day.

One of the benefits of having weekends on and weekends off with my children is that both give me an opportunity to have fun, different kinds of fun but lots of fun nonetheless.

This last weekend was a very good one. After an expensively annoying last week. I need to stop thinking I'm getting ahead, everytime I do that, I get smacked in the face with an expected expense on top of expected expenses I forgot about...

West Cliff at sunset is pretty awesome!

The highlight of the weekend was spending a few hours at the beach and in the water and my older son decided to join us and play in the water too. He usually sticks to digging or reading in the shade but he came out and we all had a really good fun time playing together!

Seeing as how it is now Wednesday, let's add in a bonus recap of the last couple of days, specifically the afterwork portions of the last couple of days.

I've been super fortunate enough to be able to get out and enjoy some of the recent swell while also becoming much more familiar with my new SUP.

We got out for a short bike ride

Suffice it to say that I spent a good chunk of the last few evenings with a giant shit-eating grin on my face as I caught waves to ride the length of Cowells two evenings in a row! The  guy I bought my board from said it was un-pearlable (that's when your front digs into the water and you slide off the front of the board usually) but I've proved him wrong and I pearled a few times before getting a better stance and launch sorted out.

Unlike the bigger board, the shorter one can zoom right down a wave face and go right down the line happily. It also carves back nicely and I'm starting to get into harder and deeper turns.

Pro tip to other SUPers catching waves: Keep using your paddle on the waves, you can gain speed, retain balance and save waves and more by keeping an active paddle. I keep seeing folks standing on their boards with their paddles held mutely in their hand as they cruise along.

More fun on tap this weekend!

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!