Face Reality

It's hard to concentrate in stupid meetings. Two sketches done with a marker and pencil that made the whole thing a lot more bearable. It's amazing what you can do with a quarter sheet of paper and sixty minutes when you are really bored...


Nasal ride

Corduroy

My Daughter Likes Floorpunch?

First ever double post day...

So Maeve loves to dance to lots of stuff, "Swagga Like Us", old reggae, Morrissey, and one of her favorites is the "Thriller" lp. There really isn't any rhyme or reason to what she likes other than some songs do it for her and others bore her I guess. The other day, she surprised the hell out of me when I had "Division One Champs" on the record player-she was dancing! Her moves were pretty good, the only problem was when Porter yells out "GO!" during "Changes" she ran out of the room. I thought I would see if she would dance again for a different song and sure enough, listening to "No Exceptions" she got down. Youth crew in effect:

Lehigh Valley All-Stars

Just thought I would put up some random youtube videos of my favorite LV bands of the past.

Rancor:


Atari:


Ultimate Warriors:


Gatecrashers with Sanchez singing:


Carpenter Ant (Part II of previously posted Globefest video):

Ten Toes Over

Decided to put up this photo that was published early summer in this year's Ocean City Sentinel featuring the photography of Steve Mullen and surfer Rob Kulisek. Mullen takes some great pictures and surfs Ocean City year 'round. He did a great series of pictures a few years back featuring a lot of the original OLC guys which was awesome. Kulisek just graduated, but every time I see a shot of this kid he is killing it. Such a good surfer, and also into photography himself.

Anyway, I really like this shot for the angle, color, etc. You can tell from Rob's wetsuit that he totally into doing his own thing in and out of the water. Steve's description is really detailed and gets someone who's never surfed about as close as possible to what that feeling is like. The photo/explanation combo was supposed to be some sort of weekly occurance in the Sentinel, but thankfully, I didn't see any more of these posted in the weeks to come and that was a good thing. It's best to let surfing be as low-key as possible in the summer months to keep the crowds from getting out of hand even more than it already is.

DIY Garden

My neighbor across the street cranked out his own little garden in his side yard and came up with a whole bunch of good vegetables. Pretty impressive considering the soil quality around here isn't the greatest. Below is one of the pumpkins that he has growing:


The corn crop didn't turn out quite as good:


Definitely something I would like to try maybe next summer if I can find the time.

Fin Art

Paint pens are awesome. Shot of the fin on my Bing Silver Spoon, post 54th street session on Sunday. I really meant to take pics of the surf, but I pulled up to shoulder to occasionally head high, clean surf and just wanted to get in the water as quickly as possible. While there was size to the waves, it was a deeper tide causing a more slowly breaking wave, rather than dumping. I paddled out expecting a day like the day the banner for this blog was taken, but things got smaller and much choppier as the tide dropped and the winds picked up. Still a very fun session for September. It was nice to see 54th street break again, seeing as every time I checked it this summer it was garbage. Seems like the tide needs to be higher for it to work.

Pumpkin Faces in the Night

Below is the flyer I did for this year's fourth annual Halloween party. I included the original Halloween 4 movie poster since it was the inspiration for the Office-theme this year. The big white space at the bottom is where all the info goes, but not necessary to include on here. Halloween by far my favorite holiday of the year. Now all I need is a costume.

The creation:


The inspiration:

Ian MacKingsley

Sir Ben Kingsley STOMPS into the shoes of Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye from Mean Magazine on Vimeo.

If someone can explain this to me, I'm all ears. I guess the beginning of the video is a quick nod to the photo of Alec MacKaye used for the cover of the Filler 7" and then it just gets weird. Coming soon: Daniel Day Lewis as Black Flag era Henry Rollins?

Things That Are Great About September...

Amy, Maeve and I went to the boardwalk Sunday night to walk around and grab some Mack 'n Manco pizza (total shoobies). The weather was perfect and we were able to get a table right away, which is rare during the summer months. Here are a few shots of things taken with my crappy cell phone camera.

Maeve does her best XforkstabX impression.

Sippy cup and pizza.

The aftermath.

Another great thing about September: Checked one of the cameras at school yesterday and the waves looked surprisingly fun despite what the forecasts were calling for. Raced home and grabbed my stuff, only to find very fun, lined up, waist high peelers pouring in at the break of my choice. As one guy described them, "The take off is soft, but then gets very racy". Anyway, surfed by myself for about an hour before a few familiar faces showed up. Loads of long lefts to be had, trunking it, no leash, warm water and beautiful weather makes for a great afternoon.

3rd Party

Could this be foreshadowing to the November election?

Anytime, Anyplace

This article was published in Surfer Magazine a few years back and it is one of my favorites. It's becoming increasingly difficult to read any of the mainstream surfing magazines anymore as they begin to be one big attempt to sell sunglasses or boardshorts to the PacSun generation. Occasionally you'll run across something worth reading or a cool photo that doesn't have someone riding a board covered in sponsorship stickers, so it's for that reason that I keep reading, I guess.

Anyway, the article focusses on Miki Dora and a particular day in his late sixties at Jeffrey's Bay, South Africa. The whole story itself is interesting, but finishes with Dora at the ripe age of 68 claiming that the wave he road that afternoon was the best wave of his life. The article closes with the line, "Realize, with joy, it can happen at any time." which I find to be the best line. For Dora, who was able to surf Malibu (a break that many describe as perfect in the right conditions) in the Golden Era to be able to claim his best wave in his "golden" years sums up what it is all about.

Watching the weather reports, checking the wind direction, getting up at dawn, blowing off responsibility is all in the name of searching for that next great wave. In the age of swell websites, cameras that show you the surf and text messaging, it has gotten a lot easier to be on the conditions when the time is right. Even with all of these modern day surf-predictors, you just can never be sure when the combination of swell, wind, tide and weather will come together to give you the wave of a lifetime. So you keep on it, knowing that those magic sessions can come at any time. Enough rambling. It's a great article and one that should be read if you get in the water.

Haunted in Beesley's

Love this tucked away Beesley's Point treasure. Run-down, beat up and just sitting on the water rotting away. If there was ever a house that looked haunted, this is it. In honor of Halloween approaching, I thought I'd post this pic of my favorite abandoned building.

Later Hanna, Hello Ike

First off, I wish I knew who snapped these pics because because the series that I saw was sick. Ocean City's very own Meatstick styling on some Bayhead bombs this past Sunday. After Hanna passed through, the surf got gooooood all up and down Jersey.


Taking off...
Pulling in...



The results. Hats off to Meatstick. The kid has no fear. Let's see what Ike has in store for OC.

Hanna Montana!

Maeve at Fifth street for her official first spot check. While it was clear tropical storm Hanna was in the neighborhood, the conditions wouldn't get good until she passed. Clearly Maeve is not happy with the wind direction. Here comes Hanna.

Plenty of swell in the water, but the damn wind is chopping everything up!!!



Back at the ranch, the bamboo jolly roger was weathering Hanna in the afternoon as we were waiting for it to turn around. By night the offshores had arrived meaning some good waves to be had on Sunday.

Here Comes Fall

Fall means uncrowded beaches, hurricane swell with offshores winds. The past week has been great and it looks like there is plenty more on the way. This shot is from last July, but conditions are pretty similar to what Strathmere has been producing over the Labor Day Weekend, minus the twenty people plus line up. Here's to uncrowded breaks like the one in the picture. The banana board has finally seem some action and it works unreal and is a great compliment to the silver spoon that I am riding in the picture above.

Summer's Over!

Here's a video clip of the song "By The Sea" by Modern Life is War. By the sea yesterday was upper 60's, ans sunny with waves a near perfect waist to chest high thanks to the different tropical systems spinning to the south. The first hour out I was completely by myself with the exception of about ten dolphins swimming and jumping around in the water. So many long rides in particular one where I stood near the nose for a good fifty yards during the ride. Quickly, the Labor Day crowd of old men began invading the line up going from just me to about twenty people in fifteen minutes. From there I was snaked twice and burned on a couple waves and realized that it wasn't worth fighting the crowd. As of today, the crowds are thinning out and the line-up will be back to normal with the official close of summer.