A little wind never hurts 11-16-05

Leaving a trade dinner meeting on Tuesday night, I tasted dryness on my lips and noticed a flag blowing from east to west. The offshore Sant Ana winds were in town. I decided that I'd go surfing the following morning, no matter what the surf reports said.

And, they weren't exciting - the surf reports, that is. Zero to two feet, with a six foot plus high tide at eight thirty. In other words, junk.

But, true to my original decision, I woke up and drove to the beach. I pulled in to the parking lot at the cliffs at 5:45 in the morning. The sun was not visible yet, but there was a full moon shining on the water. There was already one guy surfing by moonlight. I got dressed in my superhero outfit and walked the shaky trail down the cliff under only moon light. Halfway down the trail, there was a guy smoking some weed. Can't say that I fault him, particularly in his choice of scenery. The morning was clear as could be. Even in the relative darkness, the oil rigs a mile offshore looked close enough to swim to.

As the sun rose, the morning fulfilled it's promise. the waves were small and weak, but well shaped and steeper than usual with the offshore winds pushing on them.

For the first twenty minutes, there was only me and the moonlight surfer. The set waves were only waist high, but they were rights, and pretty long rides. Between sets, the water was flat with only a light texture of dry offshore winds. Paddling back out was a lazy and slow endeavor. We were grossly outnumbered by very busy pelicans, for whom the clear morning was a boon. Even I could spot the little fishes breeching the water sporadically.

To the west, I could see the buildings of Long Beach, the docks of San Pedro and the hills of Palos Verdes. To the east, the rising sun shone a blinding light right at eye level. From the north came the winds, and to the south was the big island, Catalina, whose peaks were clear over a low horizon of brown and grey fog.

I caught a big set wave. Mind you, by big I mean maybe chest high. But, it was big enough, and very well shaped. The wind sprayed foam backward off the lip. I carved a big slow bottom turn, lazily flipped around at the top, rode high for a while to beat out a section, then repeated a second big carve, hitting the top and dropping down into foam.

"Damn." I commented, grabbing my board to paddle back out. "I love this sport."

No one heard my commentary, of course. Heck, there were only five people there.

And, finally, there was peace in the universe 10-7-05

My wife and I had a class together on Thursday nights. This Thursday, she met me in the parking lot a burger joint across the street from the community college. (We only have one parking pass.) I was standing in the parking lot next to my truck. The fins of my surfboard hung over the edge of the tailgate tellingly. She parked and opened the back of the mini van and I put the surfboard in. It was the 7'-6", so it filled both rows of the vans cabin space.

She handed me a bowl of reheated spaghetti. I thanked her.

"You don't sound too good." She said.

"I wouldn't think so." I replied. "I feel like complete shit."

It was the truth. I was a sick as a dog. My throat was sore and course. My nose was suffed in the back with small leaky channels draining the thinnest of liquid constantly. I'd rubbed the area under my nose raw with tissues. My head hurt horribly.

"You never listen to me." She said. "I old you you shouldn't be surfing when you get a cold coming on like that."

She had told me that only two days before. But, it had been months since I'd been surfing consistently, and Brett and I had agreed to meet Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in the mornings.

"Actually," I told her. "when I'm surfing I feel fine. It all this damn working that sucks. What I really should do is go surf for three hours tomorrow morning, skip that damn working thing, and go home and rest."

What a happy, fleeting thought. It would never happen, though. I'm too much of a workaholic to do anything so sensible. Actually, I had brought work with me to do in class. Imagine that. In college, I used to stare off into the walls and doodle while not paying attention to my teachers. Now, here I was bringing wiring diagrams and controls sequences to class to work on while I occasionally pretended that I was listening.

It was also true that surfing was the best I felt all day. The cool water soothed my head and my joints. The salt opened up my nose. The crisp air over the ocean felt like a clean medicine in my lungs. The waves had been fun, too. There was an elusive north swell filtering softly into the beaches all week, never quite getting to be good, but wavering just below. Plus, the mornings were rising tides to pretty high tides. Surfers at 8 or 9 o'clock found nothing, with the tide so high that the mediocre waves couldn't push through. But, the 6 o'clock hour had been a little better, with peaks and mounds of waist to chest high waves pushing through the tide. Brett and I had caught our share of fun rides, a good re-introduction into the sport we loved.

Halfway through the economics lecture, I finished my work and sat back to listen. There was no point in starting to take notes, my wife had been scribbling profusely since the lecture began. Besides, I'd read about four economics books in the last year and browsed the extensive collection of theory on Wikipedia. There wasn't much in this class that I needed explained twice.

Our teacher was talking about the Multiplier effect. In economics, it is said that there is a multiplier effect to money. If Joe Blow the billionaire gives me $100, I'll probably spend it all. Out of what I spend, it will go to various companies and their employees, most of whom will spend it right away again, and so on down the chain. So, $100 added to the economy can generate $1000 of economic activity, if ten people touch it and re-spend it.

The teacher smiled and asked a question. "Is there anything else in your life that has a multiplier effect?"

The class was stumped.

"Anything in your life where you get more from it than what it really is?"

The class was silent. A few mummers bounced around the back.

"Surfing." I said.

She smiled, and motioned to my wife. "This guy really likes the surfing, eh?"

The class chuckled.

"Explain. Why?" she prodded.

"Because you only have to surf one hour in a day to have a good day." I answered plainly.
To the classes surprise, my answer was right. "Many people say exercises" she went on. "Or yoga, or meditation. Something that they say gives them more than what the put in to it."

The next morning, I caught two handfuls of waves. The rumored swell never came in, but I didn't really care. I was paddling around, catching little fun waves. I saw some surfers I knew in the water and said whatsup to them, did some low turns, some falling dismounts. I even swam underwater between sets, dragging my surfboard behind me by the leash as I took five or six breaststroke strokes under the cool water.

I got out, got dressed, went into the office, ignored all calls, and pushed like a bulldozer through the last three hours to make a 12:00 deadline. When 11:00 a.m. came, I sent out the package, drove home, took some medicine and went to bed.

In sleep, I dreamed of a foggy autumn morning at the Huntington cliffs with nice, small fun waves, families of dolphins swimming by, pelicans swirling overhead, and a fun board - a dream quite like the morning I'd had. I surfed one hour that day, and for all I cared, there was peace in the universe.

True story

My wife was sitting in the passenger seat of my truck.

"Hey." She said accusingly, glaring at me sideways. "What the hell is this?"
In her hand she held a woman's make up applicator. It was an odd type. I can't say for certian that I understood the design. It looked like a pen, but had make up of some sort in it.

"Uh.... I dunno. What is is?"

"It's lipstick"

"Right.... it's lipstick."

She got a little more glaring. "Whose lipstick is it, Travis?"

"Uh... I dunno."

"Travis." she said, urgently. "Whose lipstick is it."

"Uh.... it's the funniest story, really..... uh.... well, you see... sometimes, when I'm out surfing.... uh... I come across, uh, trash, you know, uh, just random trash floating in the ocean. So, when I come across it, I usually stuff it into my wetsuit arm, you know, so I can throw it away, later, when I get out. So... I found that, in the ocean, and I put it in my wetsuit to throw away, and just forgot to throw it away, you know. So, it's been laying in my truck for a week or two. You can throw it away if you want."

She stared at me, as if to discern the truth from the chaff, and the shrugged it off.

Hey, what could I do? It was a true story.