Step my game up

I've been out of the blogging game for a while now. I've got to get back into it.

Quick little rundown of whats been going in the life of me.

-Went to Europe successfully
-No job all summer
-Semi Job and surfing a lot right now (awesome hurricane season so far)
-Getting more serious about my pictures
-School still sucks, possibly transferring again (fourth times the charm?).

That doesn't even begin to go into of what my life's been like the past 7 months. But I would also hope someone's life can't be put into 5 bullet points, that'd be a pretty boring life. Even if they were 5 awesome bullet points. Mine are okay, 2 out of the 5 are cool. Your guess as to which of the two I'm talking about

I'll throw up some pictures from Europe tomorrow or something.

Also some surf pictures from the past few swells.

I need to wake up in 3 hours for class.

A) I hate school and responsibility
B) I may hate insomnia even more
C) I may hate this post more than that because it's senseless half sleep rambling. Deal with it?

Estoy Preoccupado

I definitely spelt that wrong. I'm not even sure if I said what I wanted to say. I need to brush up on my spanish. Want to know why? Of course you do. I just bought plane tickets to Europe, and we begin our trip in Spain. I'm beyond excited. I can't believe I'm really going. I hope nothing happens that prevents me from going, especially because i just spent 900$ on tickets.

Other than that I've been working, coaching lacrosse, and going to class. I've had zero time to do anything. I've missed a lot of good days of waves and it's starting to really get to me. But I've been in a good mood and not too depressed lately. It's a combination of staying busy and this beautiful weather.

St. Patty's day was yesterday. I was at the bar til 3:30am. I had to wake up and catch a 9:04am train. I'm delirious.

I'm running in a 15k next weekend. That's 9.3 mile. I've never ran more than 5 miles. I haven't been training. I'm screwed.

Bye for now.

Oh, and this movie looks awesome.

Waves.

Once again I'm sitting in class and there are waves going off. I just want to surf! I don't feel too bad cause I wouldn't be able to surf if I was home anyway. I got a new tattoo and I can't go in the water/put on a wetsuit for another week. Still frustrating though. I watched the quiksiver pro at snapper rock last night and it was insane. Dane Reynolds is an animal. It made me want to surf even more.


I haven't had a good session of surfing in about 3 or 4 months. Everytime I've gone its been big, snowy, cold, and windy. Basically I've gotten the shit kicked out of me and froze my ass off and got one or two waves in two hours. Heavy drifts and sketchy conditions. The weather SHOULD be warming up though, so thats good.

I've got a lot to look forward too these next few weeks, pretty excited. I'll check back later.

Mission Accomplished.

Yesterday was another day filled with snow/wind/cold. I had a very fulfilling day yesterday. I worked 7-12, then I surfed from 2-5, then I snowboarded from 8-11.

I say mission accomplished because at the start of the winter me and my buddy pat wanted to say we surfed and snowboarded in the same day. Now I didn't go to a mountain, but pat's backyard is close enough. We hit the jump and the jersey barrier again. I was much improved from the last time. That made up for my shitty surfing. I tested out my new/free 5/4/3 that I got, and guess what, It leaks. As soon as i paddled out the suit flooded with cold water and my legs were cold the whole time. After about a half hour my legs started cramping up hard. Riding waves was basically impossible at that point. Very frustrating because the waves were awesome. I saw some people getting huge barrels and throwing some sick turns. I knew I should have been doing the same but oh well, I'm not gonna make excuses. I sucked. At least my friend pat got a sick ride so it wasn't completely pointless. Changing in the snow was probably one of the most miserable experiences of surfing in the winter so far. I forgot my sweatpants at home, I was very cold.

All in all a good day.

Today I worked from 10-7. Now I'm sitting at home and relaxing drinking some Blue Moon.

Tomorrow I'm getting a new tattoo then going into the city for my parents' birthdays (mom 2/18 dad 3/2). Don't tell anyone I'm getting another tattoo though, I haven't told anyone, keep it shhhhhhh. It's a surprise.

Moist.

It's days like today that make me want to get on a plane to somewhere tropical.

Factors/Reasons for this desire:

1) its been snowing/raining all day in the city, and I'm soaking wet from my socks up to my head. the sidewalks are just one big brown slush-fest. When it snows in the city its nothing at all like the movies where everything is white and pretty.

2) its the heart of the winter. I forget what the warmth of the sun feels like on my skin. I'm sick of bundling up everywhere I go. I'm sick of wearing socks. I want to bronze my chest. (that was like 5 reasons bundled into one)

3) I was just looking at pictures from my uncle's wedding in mexico

4) I just sold a board bag to a guy going to panama on saturday.

5) I need to surf warm water waves

6) Someone else I know is going to Puerto Rico today.

7) Everyone is planning their spring breaks to go somewhere warm, and I'm not.

8) I hate the winter if I'm not snowboarding.

9) I want the days to be longer again

10) I can probably go on for a while like this, but I'll stop here.

You get the idea. I'm over winter.

Here are those mexico flicks I was checking out.

I need to get away.

Slacker.

I've been in crusie control mode again, and slacking.

Last Thursday was a nice break in the Cruise Control mode though. I went snowboarding at camelback because for some reason class was cancelled. It was me and my buddy John. Camelback is a really small mountain, but I made the best of it and had a good time. I spent part of the day helping my friend get better. I took him on his first black diamond, he was stoked, and so was I. I knew he could do it he just doubted himself. On the lift up I said follow me no matter what. He agreed and of course I took him down a black. He fell once or twice but made it down. He was grinning from ear to ear, I know that feeling, stoke.

View from the top:

After that we stuck to this one trail that had a mini terrain park at the end of it. It was just a few boxes and a big jump at the end. I was excited to put my newly learned skills to the test. I did much better than I expected. I was sticking the rails and even getting some "oohhhs" and "ahhhs" from the people behind me and the people going up the lift. Stoke. I was killing the jump (not really, but in my eyes I was considering I could barely do a 2 ft jump a week ago). I was getting some serious air. In all my years skateboarding I've never gotten airtime like that before. It's an awesome feeling just floating up there looking at the ground. I'm hooked. Stoke. My buddy John saw some of these airs and was itching to try it. He attempted to go off but he had zero speed and kind of just flopped over the jump. I gave him some pointers, just like I got a week earlier. I told him go much faster and just jump, don't think. On the last run of the day he did just that. I was behind him and I just saw him launch up and then he disappeared behind the jump. I thought for sure he ate it. Wrong, he stuck it. Stoked.

Overall that was a good day of snowboarding and we both left super happy. Thats what I mean by stoke. That's why I surf, snowboard, etc. It's an almost indescribable feeling of joy and excitement. I only get that kind of joy and excitement from few things in life, and I find that I just spend my days trying to chase that stoke. I guess you can call me and addict or a junkie. But at least I'm chasing "stoke" and not heroin or crystal meth. Its that feeling of gliding along a face of a wave, booking at down a mountain, carving up an asphalt hill, or launching into the air and floating. When you walk away from that stoke event you feel like your floating on joy for the rest of the day. It's so hard to describe, you've just got to try it.

Oh, but that stoke that we were riding on was completely deflated when we stopped at a five guys burger joint and shoved nasty hamburgers and french fries down our throats for about 12 bucks a piece. We felt so guilty. It's crazy how stupid little things can pop your stoke bubble.

Sorry for the mini hiatus. I'm back.

Oh, and I also realized I left a few stories hanging. I apologize to those of you who read this and have been thinking about these stories day and night, just waiting for me to divulge in the intricacies of certain events in my ever so significant life. HAH! Yeah right.

Anyway, JMU weekend, and Jetty near death stories are coming soon. probably tomorrow. I've got a full day of class and nothing but time. I leave my house at 9am and get home at 11pm, a 14 hour day for four hour and 15 minute classes. At least I'm not wasting my time or anything......(that was sarcasm, its hard to be sarcastic over the inter web)

Sorry for the delay Ace.

If you know the movie that quote is from you get some points in my book. Not that that would mean anything signifiant but hey, why not play along.

I've had an eventful couple of days. But it all seems like a blur and kind of difficult to remember. Thursday was fun as hell. I didn't go to class and I snowboarded in my friends backyard during the day, then again at night. I wanted to surf but that wasn't in the cards. It okay though I got my stoke on via snowboarding. I'm still new to snowboarding so this was my first day attempting jumps and grinding. We set up a legit jump and then we also built a jump up to a jersey barrier. It's kind of hard to explain. I planned on taking some pictures but I forgot to put my memory card in my camera, twice. But luckily I brought another camera that also takes videos. Too bad the battery was dead. Don't you love technology?

Anyway my friend Pat helped me out with learning some jumps, he gave me some pointers. By the end of the day I was doing pretty solid Indy's off the jump landing them clean. I almost stuck a 180. Not bad for my first time. Skateboarding for a few years back in middle school definitely helped out. Then we attempted some grinds. We started off with the barrier on it's side so I could ease into it. I got those pretty easily. Then we stood it upright and built a jump/gap to it. Apparently this is pretty difficult, especially it being my first time grinding at all. I didn't care and I was going for it. I was surprised at myself for charging like that, I'm usually a bitch and It takes me a while to attempt something like that. I didn't land any of them cleanly, but attempting them was a victory for me.

heres my buddy Pat sticking a Tail Press on said barrier.

I had a lot of fun, It made me miss skating. I used to skate all day at Pat's house. Me and Pat were little punk skaters all through middle school. We went our separate ways in High School, but for the past 2 years we've been playing music, surfing a bunch, and lately snowboarding. It was nice to get reconnected. We both want to get back into skating too, I just need some money for a board.

Heres Pat and I as little Grom skaters. (notice the difference in shorts height)

In the interest of time and space I won't tell you about my weekend, I'll save that for tomorrow. It's a good one.

No means of Transportation.

I don't have a car. There are waves. I can't get to the beach. Do you see the dilemma here?

I skipped school to go surfing today with my friend. Only to find out this morning he doesn't have a car today either. I've been staring at the webcam for the past hour going mad. I need to get back in the water it's been almost 2 months since I surfed good waves, and almost one month since I've even been in the water (shitty waves that day, I missed the good ones because I was at work all day).

This is what the webcam looks like right now:

Thats about chest high, perfect little barrels to tuck into.

Swells here on the east coast are here and gone sometimes in a matter of hours. It's not like the west coast where a swell and waves will linger for a week. These winter time nor'easters usually work like this: Wind blows up the coast, storm arrives, too windy and messy to surf, storm leaves, waves clean up, waves disappear with storm and go to Europe. That means as soon as the stormy part of the storm system leaves we have a 12-24 hour window to get the waves. After that the north northwest winds blow the storm out to sea, sending europe one of those week long lingering swells/waves. Make sense? I kind of simplified it, maybe too much. Us surfers are all mini-meteorologists.

Bottom line, the waves will be gone by the time I have a car, and then its going to be flat again. We've had 3 or 4 days these past months where there waves for a few hours. I missed all of them due to work and school. I had enough of that, so I skipped class to surf (I'll deal with those consequences for sure on tuesday, stress). That didn't work out to well. I'm very upset, but oh well. I probably sound like a whiney little bitch, but I don't care. Who in their right mind would bitch and moan about not being able to go dive into 35 degree water in 30 degree air temps with 20mph winds, and on top of that basically get naked in the snow while changing in and out of my wetsuit. I'll tell you who, me. If your a surfer you can understand where I'm coming from. If your not a surfer, I can't really explain it. All I can say is go surf, just don't surf where I am :).