East Side Surfblog

Phone blog

01/21/10

I’d forgotten what it was like to be outside. It seems as if I’ve been hiding indoors since well before the Christmas holidays, and the recent change in the weather was a welcome taste of things to come. Of course, if you are reading this on Thursday, you are huddled inside again because it’s going to be raining all day. But at least we have temperatures near the tolerable level.

I also can pat myself on the back for correctly predicting we would have surf last Sunday with Monday morning being the cleanup day. I unfortunately got called out of town at the last minute and missed it all. So if you were looking around the lineup to see who was missing, I was your surf sacrifice. But I did get the play-by-play from Burbo and Dave, who both caught it and were more than happy to rub it in.

So, since I’m not surfing, I have all kinds of time to interact with my fellow humanoids, and because I’ve been in the car a lot recently, I’ve been able to observe the species in its natural environment. Which seems to be in the car talking on the cell phone. I’m not exactly sure when the switch was thrown, but looking back, I do recall a time when we all survived just fine without mobile devices. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those technophobes ranting about how it was better back in the day. Before the cell phone, there were plenty of times when I was stranded somewhere and would have given just about anything for a little phone in my pocket.

No, I’m talking about the overwhelming need to talk on the phone while merging into traffic, changing lanes at 75 mph on the interstate or, if you live in Mount Pleasant, while blatantly running through intersections after the light has turned red. Whenever I see anyone doing something odd in traffic, they are inevitably on the phone. What gives? I was waiting at a stoplight a couple of days ago and this lady in a black BMW brushed the side of my car with hers. It happened just as the light turned green, and she didn’t even acknowledge me or the mishap, she just kept yakking away and drove off. Now, I drive an 18-year-old station wagon, so if there was going to be any damage (there wasn’t) it would have been all the worse for her. But, really? Not even an “I’m sorry” gesture? Good thing I was by myself. I tend to be fairly mellow and philosophical about these little social transgressions. On the other hand, had Mrs. Blog been there, she would have chased her down and done the Sheriff Buford H. Pusser thing on her windshield with a baseball bat. On second thought, that might have been cool to watch and I’d now be able to blog about how Mrs. Blog is doing hard time in the slammer, instead of sitting here blogging about the weather like some old drudge.

Of course, the weather makes a good segue into my surf forecast, because the former begets the latter. We have a weird set of weather systems colliding over us the next few days. As best as I can tell, tomorrow should have a decent little swell with some offshore winds that could clean it up nicely. Tides and day length are wrong for an after-work session, so if you can go at midmorning, catch one for me, because the only thing I will be riding tomorrow will be my desk. By the time the weekend comes, things on the weather charts get all swirly with weird systems, and it looks like the wind switches a couple of times before it settles into a strong push from the SW on Sunday. This usually means a big choppy south swell for us with a lot of rip. Just right for 48-degree water. Nothing I like better than to struggle for hours to catch a decent wave while wrapped in layers of cloying rubber and getting swept 10 blocks down the beach by the rip. Bring your hood, because it’s a long walk back to the car against the wind. At least everyone who surfs this weekend won’t be talking on the phone in the car on the way home. Their fingers will be too frozen to dial it.

Drone blog

01/14/10

I really would like to go surfing. I’m not shirking, I swear it. Water temperature around 48 degrees and air temperature hovering near 30 have nothing to do with it. Sure, it’s dark as Mordor by the time I leave the office, but I have one of those headband flashlights hanging in the garage. That would probably work. And the fact that it’s been practically flat for a couple of weeks isn’t a barrier, is it? After all, we live where it’s always flat, so I surf when there’s no surf all the time.

I think it must be my diet. Mrs. Blog has me eating oatmeal for breakfast now. That’s the only change I can think of. So it’s her fault I haven’t been surfing in weeks. This stupid oatmeal must have propelled me into a parallel universe. Bet there’s a Surfblogger in the other universe eating something yummy for breakfast, like Skoogie dogs all the way, and paddling out into crispy perfection.

So instead of doing something useful, like surfing or talking story with the bruddas on the dunes, I’m hanging out at the house watching the water in the birdbaths freeze. And hanging out at the house can be dangerous. Because, being a surfer, I pretty much assume everything is groovy unless I hear otherwise. So I’m reading stuff on the Web, and lo and behold, it turns out that the bad guys over in Iraq or wherever have been able to intercept the video feeds from our Predator drones for years.

Now I’m hacked off. Not just because of the military implications, but because I’ve been counting on this technology being transferred to the public sector. I’ve been waiting on my own Predator drone for years, and this has got to be some kind of setback. I’ve pretty much been planning to just sit around in the morning with a cup of coffee and get a real accurate surf check going by sending my drone on a low-level mission over the lineup. And maybe, if the waves are good and it happens to be the morning of an ESA contest, I’d take another sip of coffee, toggle the old joystick and blow up Rick Anson’s surfboard quiver with a Hellfire missile so he couldn’t kick my butt so badly in our heat.

Plus, think of the domestic applications. I could hover that bad boy over Mrs. Blog’s shopping expeditions and use the high-res cameras to see what she was buying, so when she came home and asked the dreaded “How do I look in this?” question, I would be prepared with an answer that has a decent survivability ratio. Because the current two answers I have been using, “yes” or “no,” don’t seem to work so good — I discarded “maybe” years ago because that seemed to make things worse. Military technology must surely provide a better solution.

As for the surf forecast, it looks like we will get some kind of rough SSW swell on Sunday, with a possible cleanup day on Monday being the most rideable. So, unless you are going to make up some excuse for missing work, I’d suggest you put fresh batteries in your headband flashlight.

Frozen blog

01/07/10

It’s so cold I’ll bet the guy who invented the Snuggie isn’t even wearing one. He and that ShamWow dude are probably laid up on some tropical beach somewhere drinking little umbrella drinks and counting the clicks on their laptops. So I’m not even checking the surf forecast sites this week. At least not for here. When the wind is cold enough to blacken the leaves on the banana trees outside the tiki bar, it’s too cold to surf. There’s probably some kind of black banana leaf parable somewhere in surf lore, but I’m too cold to look it up. So I’m gonna say “M’aala ho’ola icky icky eck eck.” Which is Hawaiian for “The banana leaves are black and frozen, so whadda you, nuts?”

If you’re like me, the weather has got you going in the direction of something akin to cabin fever. So, being your full-service surfblogger, I’ll give you some things to do to keep you stoked until we thaw.

• Anything that involves rum.
• Look online for pictures of places with better waves than us.
• Look online for pictures of places with warmer waves than us.
• Start growing bonsai like Mr. Miyagi.
• Go to www.straitjackets.com.
• Build a replica of the Krakatoa volcano in your garage.
• Strip the wax off your longboard on the living room floor using Mrs. Blog’s hairdryer.
• Sniff sunscreen and ride a boogie board down the Cooper River bridge in the ice rain.

So, in addition to considering the above, I am also involving myself in science and nature. Being a Renaissance man, I have used my powers of scientific observation to notice that it is so ridiculously cold that all the nature has taken the Amtrak to Miami. Except for Blogdog, who couldn’t afford the fare. So he is morosely enduring the cold like the rest of us. And the colder it gets, the less motivated Blogdog is to go poo in the backyard. In fact, the colder it is, the closer to the patio he places his landmines. And being a Great Dane, this is a significant, if not lifesaving observation; because if you step into one, you may never be heard from again.

Which got me thinking that the traditional method of gauging the temperature in degrees does nothing to preserve my life vis-a-vis the Blogdog hazard. So, after careful mapping of backyard piles and correlation to the approximate temperature when the pile was placed, I have come up with a formula to predict where not to walk based on temperature.

R = (K- 273.15)*(9/5) + 491.67, where R is the radius of hazards from the edge of the patio and K is the outside temperature in degrees Kelvin.

I know this has to be fascinating reading, and I don’t want to overwhelm you, but if you do this backwards with R being the known variable and degrees (K) being unknown, it’s possible to tell the outside temperature from where in my yard the poo is. I can hear you gasp, and with all modesty, I have to agree with you that it’s brilliant.

I’ve been calling the TV stations and insisting that they put me on during the weather forecast to give temperature calculations from my backyard. At first they were nice to me, but now they won’t even answer the phone. It can’t have anything to do with the brilliance of the invention, because that’s a given. I’m thinking it must be because my model is too unwieldy. So I’m working on miniaturization into a mobile app using a small piece of Astroturf and a Chihuahua.

All I need is a little TV time and one of those headset microphone things for Vinnie: “That’s right folks, this thing is made in Mount Pleasant. And you know how good those guys are. So order your Poop-O-Mometer now and receive two Astroturf pads in the colors of your favorite football team at no extra cost. Plus, in this limited TV offer, order now and receive two extra replacement Chihuahuas FREE! Hurry — because we’re running out of Chihuahuas and I can’t be doing this all day.”

We’re gonna be rich beyond all imagination.

Holiday blog

12/23/09

I’m pretty sure there were waves last Saturday. On Friday night, in the middle of the monsoon, I had every intention of hitting it. But when I woke up on Saturday morning, stuck my nose outside and felt that cold wind blowing, I lost all the desire. I’d like to be able to blame it on age, but, looking at it realistically, there are plenty of people who live in other places who surf in way colder conditions all the time. Here’s Ocean City, N.J., on the day in question. Would I go out in that? Not a chance. So, in addition to being old, I’m spoiled. But, now that I think of it, there are plenty of people who surf all the time in places way warmer than us, too. It’s really not that far to Florida, you know.

I also had a good chuckle the other day when Brent sent me this link in response to my rant about Tiger Woods. Just when I thought it was safe to come out of the water, too. It just further reinforces Vinnie’s theory that the world as we know it has already come to an end and nobody cares. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, did it make a sound? I’m sure any day now word will come out that Skoogie Dogs are bad for you or some other nonsense.

As for the surf forecast, it looks to me like there’s a decent swell coming on Christmas Day, and then the winds will switch offshore and clean it up on Saturday. So if Santa Claus is good to you and brings you a new board or wetsuit, you won’t have to wait too long to test it out. Just don’t forget the booties and gloves. A hood would be nice, too.

Happy holidays, everyone.

Tiger blog

12/17/09

King Neptune must have gotten fed up with me kvetching about no surf on the weekends, because he served up a nice little taste on Sunday. The fog was so thick I couldn’t see anything from the shore, but judging from the number of cars on the street and the number of guys walking to and from the lineup on 25th Street, there had to be something.

It’s just that when it’s all cold and cloudy, I have a huge motivation problem. Plus, not being able to see anything makes it worse. Luckily I ran into John M., who was checking it at the same time, and he persuaded me to suit up and paddle out. Had a nice session and was glad to see that I still remember what to do. Thanks, Johnboy.

The thing that’s got me going this week is this whole Tiger Woods gig. I’m pretty good at staying in my own little reality and not letting the outside world whiz on my Rice Krispies. I have to keep tabs on all kinds of news to do my job, but I tune out most of the cultural weirdness that will make me hurl, like American Idol, who’s dumped that Jen chick this week or why that Brad dude doesn’t love his kids. But CNN was on the tube in the locker room at the health club today, and some bonehead was telling me that the Tiger Woods scandal was on par with Nixon and O.J. Simpson. Really? Suddenly, my Rice Krispies got soggy. Tiger’s marriage means so much to this dude that he feels like Tiger misused the office of President of the United States or allegedly chopped up a couple of people with a butcher knife? The graphic under the talking head showed that Tiger made like $112 million this year. I think I hear the hounds of hell baying. No wonder Al Qaeda wants to blow us up.

I really hadn’t tuned in to the whole Tiger thing because, frankly, I don’t give a rip. The dude’s a golfer. And for me, golf is something you do after you’re dead; or more precisely, while you’re dying, because it has to be boring you to death. I’m sure it’s hard, but c’mon, really, how exciting is it to hit a little ball into a hole? I mean, you can even take as many swipes as you want and nothing bad happens. The whole “I’m trying to beat my personal best” thing. Wow, hairy, dude. To inject a little sense of urgency, they should shoot you with a Taser after every hole you don’t make par. Oh, sure, you have the excitement of driving the cart while drinking, but the sport itself shouldn’t even be called a sport. It’s more like a pastime along the lines of macrame or Paint By Numbers.

Or maybe they could make it exciting by turning it into an extreme sport. Tune the golf carts up so they run about 75 mph and have a tournament where there is only one ball, full contact and the object is to be the last driver still conscious. Sort of like a cross between polo, a Roman chariot race and a Road Warrior movie. Suppose Tiger really was a tiger, like that was his pro wrestling costume shtick — dressed like Spartacus but with a Cincinnati Bengals helmet — and we rooted for him because he was one hell of a golf cart driving street fighter. Over the course of a day, the competitors would completely thrash all the bushes and flowers at some tony country club while bashing each other into the dirt with 9-irons. Now I’d call that a sport. Get ’em Tiger. Don’t let that little guy crawl away… Attaboy.

But don’t get me wrong: I’m glad all these people play golf. It keeps them out of the lineup. I’m pretty sure Mrs. Blog would be just as pissed at me for playing golf all the time as she is at me for surfing all the time. So I figure all those other guys are burning up their fun-passes over there on the links, and that’s just fine by me. I can paddle out in my own little private Idaho without worrying that a bunch of golfers will be floating around out there with me.

The tempest in a teapot over Tiger also reinforces my belief in the superiority of our sport. Look at Kelly Slater. He’s been world champion nine times now, which is a completely unheard-of feat. He just took second in the Eddie last week. And does anybody out there know if the dude is even married or does he have a steady girlfriend or did he cheat on his English exam or kiss his third wife’s uncle’s cousin? And more to the point: Who cares? The guy consistently proves that he can paddle out anywhere in the world under any conditions and completely rip.

As commercial as surfing has become, it at least seems like the surfing masses don’t judge professional surfers by their personal lives. Even if the guy was married, I can’t see a sponsor going, “Sorry, dude, CNN says you’re a freak and somebody went all postal on your SUV, so the next time you drop in on perfect Indo bombs you’ll have to do it in these other baggies.” I mean you’d have to go completely O.J. and then build a meth lab in your kitchen or something to lose your surfing sponsors.

So I’m happy to be a surfer and glad I don’t have to buy a new brand of tasseled shoes because Tiger let me down. But I guess Kelly’s sponsors, being corporations, too, would cave if a bunch of self-righteous people started going on how moms and dads wouldn’t buy stuff for their kids any more. I do feel better knowing that Tiger could end up another outcast millionaire wearing a sweater vest and living in some cheesy gated community somewhere. And if it happened to Kelly, he would be doomed to spend his millions roaming the tropics in search of perfect turquoise barrels. Of course, now that I think about it, I am pissed, because they’re paying freaks like that to surf all day and I ain’t one of ’em.

Chaos blog

12/03/09

We had some goofy weather roll through, didn’t we? Going from chilly to a warm tropical deluge and back again within a couple of days is strange indeed. BlogDog even heard thunder last night, which makes him inconsolable. And there are not many places a scared Great Dane can hide.

Of course, like all funky weather systems, there is the potential for surf, and apparently this one brought some good waves. I got a text from Burbo on Wednesday morning telling me the Washout was shoulder to head and glassy. Didn’t do me any good, though, since I work for a living. Plus, Burbo is still recovering from spinal surgery, so I don’t know what he was doing checking it. Sort of like the blind leading the blind, except it’s more like the disabled leading the unable.

Somehow I’ve ended up with the cars of both BlogSon1 and BlogSon2 at the house. Add them to the three I already own, and it looks like a used car lot. It was suggested that I get some balloons and go into business. I already have a name and slogan: Shady Grady’s Used Cars — Where everybody rides. Except that Mrs. Blog slid into the ditch in front of that house yesterday during the rain and scratched the bumper on BlogSon1’s Bonneville on the culvert. BlogSon1 wryly pointed out to me that she’s done more damage to cars trying to keep them off the street — where they might get damaged. Someday, he will understand it’s better to just surrender to the chaos.

And, speaking of chaos, it looks to me like the arrows on the swell models are pointing somewhere and nowhere all at once. Just kind of thrashing around out there, and looks like the weekend will be no different. It does show things starting to line up after the weekend, and possibly by Tuesday there will be an organized swell from the northeast. Lot of good that does me. Remind me again, how many more days until the summer and we can surf when we get home after work?

Turkey blog

11/25/09

I think I’ll just go live in a coal mine. I absolutely hate it when the time changes and the day length gets into negative numbers. Getting home from work after dark every day is really depressing. Throw in a week of overcast, rainy yuck like this one and I’m a mess. BlogSon1 lived in Sweden for a year and I don’t know how he survived without the sun.

There’s also this sort of irrational frenzy in the air every year at this time. I can feel it when I’m driving. It just seems like everyone is rushing around, going everywhere and nowhere all at once. Reminds me of an LP on a turntable at 45 rpm — I know the tune, but it doesn’t make me want to sing along. Maybe I can talk Vinnie into dressing like a Hare Krishna and handing out little flowers to people at the stoplights on Coleman Boulevard. It wouldn’t change anything, but at least I would be amused until the next swell pops up.

Speaking of swells, they don’t do us any good this time of year unless they happen on the weekend. Of course, you could be self-employed like Norman and Kai or any number of guys I could name who have their lives organized around not working when it’s on. It’s one of those chicken-and-egg kind of things. Do they surf because they have the time or do they have the time because they surf? Ah, the mysteries of life abound.

So, here we sit on the verge of a four-day weekend with lots of opportunity to go — if nature would only cooperate. Looking at the swell models, this is a hard one to predict. Thanksgiving Day looks to be the most promising. Seems like there’s always Turkey Day waves. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve paddled out trying not to hurl. There’s a fairly decent long-period swell on the map, and it looks like the wind is supposed to start blowing offshore. I’ll give Thursday a definite “maybe.” Then the swell model shows this big glob of weirdness appearing offshore, and the lines start going every which way. I don’t exactly know what that means other than to say you may not want to go boating on Friday and the rest of the weekend you’ll just have to check it.

Oh, and one last thing — if this really angry-looking Hare Krishna tries to hand you a flower on Coleman Boulevard, you’d better take it or you’ll piss him off.

Chakra blog

11/19/09

Man, that was a long break from writing this thing. Somewhere toward the end of October, the universal forces became gyroscopically aligned against my time-space continuum and I had to hit the escape button to keep from being sucked down into the void. In layman’s terms, I had a bunch of work to do so I slacked off on the blog. I just didn’t mean for it to stretch out for six weeks.

Plus, I promised Mrs. Blog a week’s vacation and had to make good on that vow or face a slow descent into night. It turned out to be a pretty cool vacation, too. Certainly was one of the few times I have ever willingly gone somewhere that has no hope of a surf, skate or snowboard session. I actually wanted to go where there was none of the above because poor Mrs. Blog has been so indulgent of my surf obsession over the years that she deserved a payback. Yes, I know, I can hear all the bros groaning because somebody has broken ranks and the other wives now know that such a thing is possible. Sorry, dudes. It was a mental slip-up and I’ll try not to let it happen again.

So, being completely buried by work and squeezing a vacation into the middle of it is my excuse, and I’ll try to catch you up on the highlights. First, the vacation out to Arizona was great. We’d never been anywhere in the American West. Been to the West Coast because there’s waves, but not to the Cowboy West. We approached the trip with a good bit of cynicism, thinking that it would be all corny and exploited, but we were wonderfully surprised by how genuine everything looked and felt. Haven’t done any research on it, so I don’t know if it is a local preference or an outright law, but there wasn’t a billboard to be seen in what seemed like the entire state. Having them everywhere you look around here made the unobstructed views there even more remarkable. Being a flatlander, the canyons, Grand and otherwise, were mindboggling.

We spent a few days in Sedona, which is the gathering place for weird. There is supposed to be some kind of giant vortex, like a huge spiral of multidimensional spiritual energy emanating from the rocks or something. People come from all over to meditate, pray and stuff. You can go to these places and have these shaman dudes read your karma, align your chakras, photograph your aura or scrub your blockage. Never made it, but I did find a local brewery that makes a pretty credible pilsner.

Everything is all New Age, and there’re these stores stacked to the rafters with dried animal parts, sticks, incense rocks and just about all you need to aid you on whatever spiritual journey you’re into. I’m sure if you needed three badger teeth, a rattlesnake eye and 14 feathers from the Uruguayan Southern Lapwing to complete your astral map, they’d have it on Aisle 5.

So I’m pretty much tiptoeing through all the stuff at this place, trying not to touch anything because my Karmann Ghia is already aligned and I’m not taking any chances of screwing it up, when all of a sudden, Mrs. Blog picks up this giant, crystal chakra wand and waves it all over me going, “Gee, wonder what this thing does?”

Well, that pretty much shot a dart into my aura and started it swirling like the backlights at a Jefferson Airplane concert. So the rest of the trip I had to fill my shoes with magnets and wear this beaver skull necklace to keep from being sucked into the vortex and spit out into some other astral plane where you have Oreos instead of eyes and nobody cares.

I think those airport security guys have something against us spiritual people. Why should I be treated so roughly just because I refuse to remove the skulls before going through the metal detector? I have every right to wear yak hides on an airplane. Don’t they feel the pull of the deadly vortex? Why did they resent being dusted with ground sage and beetle dung? Didn’t they feel cleansed?

It’s hard to outrun a bunch of angry steroid airport guys with your Birkenstocks full of magnets. And now all my Lapwing feathers are bent.

But the next weekend was the Joe Hiller memorial longboard contest and we had a great swell. An unbelievably good swell. And it was a gas to host the Westside guys over on the Eastside when there was actually something good to surf. Of course, I got blown out of my heat in the first round. It’s all Mrs. Blog’s fault. She should know better than to pick up a crystal wand. Hopefully that stuff will wear off my chakra before the next contest season begins.

Short blog

09/24/09

Well, the surf has been pretty minimal all week. Of course, there’s always something to ride depending upon how desperate you are. I can really notice the days getting shorter now, which portends the end of after-work sessions.

The final nail in that coffin will be the time change at the end of October. Having said all that, I still didn’t even get wet all week. That, plus a very hectic workweek, is going to make this a very short blog.

Making it even shorter is the outlook for surf this weekend. Swell models are showing a small swell continuing through the weekend. But as I write this, the wind prediction looks like the wind will switch somewhere early Sunday morning and blow out of the SW. So I think Sunday will be even worse than Saturday, unless you have a kiteboard; if so, then have at it. For us mortals on traditional boards, Saturday looks to be the cleaner of the two days. Low tide is early, so don’t see much reason to try to get out there for a dawn patrol. Maybe midtide coming in, say 10:00 or so, will be the call. See you in the water.

Art blog

09/17/09 

Did I ever tell you how much I love Skoogie’s? Not only do they have hot dogs, they also have a big stash of classic car magazines you can read while you’re eating; as long as you don’t get grossed out by the little drops of mustard on the photos. Plus, did you know that if you press globs of sauerkraut in a big stack of magazines for a couple of months, it comes out looking pretty similar to the flowers Mrs. Blog presses? Especially if it has mustard, ketchup and some of that tasty pickle relish mixed in. Art is everywhere; you just have to look for it.

So I can go have lunch, discover outsider art and eat food groups I shouldn’t be eating while reading magazines about old cars I shouldn’t be wanting. It’s somehow quite fulfilling — which is more than I can say about the surf we’ve had for the past week. The downside of having all those weekends in a row with good hurricane swells running is that it gets you in the habit of expecting it. Of course, this being South Carolina, that’s a completely irrational expectation. Not that I have ever set the expectation that I was rational. Well, maybe once — but after I persuaded Mrs. Blog to marry me, I kinda drifted back to my more normal center of being. Too late for her.

Since this is a blog about surfing, I will report that I went surfing over the weekend and that it’s pretty hard not to have fun while surfing, so that was that. But I’m still hungering for the good stuff and haven’t had a long enough run of the normal conditions to once again just be grateful that we have an ocean out our back door.

The only thing I can do at this point is give you the hopeful forecast that it looks as though we will have a rideable ENE swell heading our way for the weekend, with Sunday looking like the best of the two days. The swell period gets pretty long on Sunday and even longer for Monday, which means that something is coming our way. Whether it gets here in time for us to ride it on Sunday or just grumble about having to miss it on Monday remains to be seen. But, being that I’m ever the optimist, you bet I’ll be checking it.