Sunday, December 31, 2006
isolated new-year's firecrackers, screamers + sparklers have been goin off in the street since yesterday, sure to build gradually up to a big crescendo of blazing noise as the night progresses...
followed through on getting out to pops early wednesday morning: surfed THREE hours for same thing as xmas eve: staked out the peak on long waits for ok waves, till there were just 3 or 4 of us old-timers out there, surfing between crowd shifts.
thursday, while poor steve had to work downtown all day, jimmy + conrad took all our boards + me in jimmy's new surfmobile ['jimmy defines the minivan - the minivan does not define jimmy'] to da west side, for steak plate at sunny's roadside steak plate truck in waianae, + big waves - not as big as the 40-footers on the north shore that day, and breaking just right to be manageable at the spot conrad picked - rest camp, in pokai bay, a military recreation area beach where you have to show i.d. to enter. still a very mixed crowd w/ some serious old time wesside kannaks boomin down the biggest peaks! actually managed to catch a few nice rides in the crowd out there - bigger waves that start w/ a gentle slope down their broad faces, a fun stage to carve a soul turn left then snap back around for a nice accelerated slide to the right across the peel ... tom-A-hawk's 1st wesside waves!!! going back for a new year's surf w/ conrad tomorrow! thursday night the three of us met up w/ stevie and jake took us all out for dinner dockside at the yacht club, where he paddles outrigger - mahalo jake! was very festive, w/ holiday lights on the boats reflecting in the water...
friday morning steve had to work again, but left the condo w/ his board by 8:30, proclaiming I GET TO HAVE FUN TOO. we passed each other in the street as he came in and i went out, for a rainy session w/ jake + jimmy that started great [tom-A-hawk was workin the right] but soon got overcrowded... jake still managed to get a few pics w/ his fun xmas present - a new gopro digital hero sports camera...
yesterday [saturday] jimmy, jake, conrad, stevie + me met up for the last traditional saturday morning surfclub event of the year - an expedition to diamond head [in the water by 10!]: which was windy, yes; choppy, yes; hard work constantly paddling against the current and the wind chop back into the lineup, yes - but we all still got rides. jake is really quite the surfer, and he had his new camera with him again, which the cute blondie shortboarder thought was pretty cool ... tom-A-hawk got a couple of his signature 007 late takeoffs / steep drop / bottom turns, but don't expect any jake pics - tom-A-hawk is just too fast. after that workout/battle we were all almost as RAVENOUS as conrad so we got takeout food, beer + dessert from south shore grill / diamond head market + grill, had lunch under the pergolas at queen's beach, where we were clearly being cruized by a nice beefy local loner ... and it really doesn't get much better than that, 'sCrunGE!' friends ...
went to see 'dreamgirls' at ward w/ jake last nite, resting up today for the big new year's eve fireworks party at alan's place up on the slopes of kapalama heights in kalihi valley, which is guaranteed to be going OFF w/ countless household fireworks displays, and views of the big town displays on shore plus lots, and lots, of boys. party of the year if you ask me.
HAU'OLI MAKAHIKI HOUUUUUUUU !!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, December 30, 2006
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Friday, December 29, 2006
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006
still had lots of energy so i paddled past the sand barge out to pops. funny mixed group out there too, all crowding the peak as usual, but i had already practiced patience so i hung out, got to know the different characters out there, including the local dad + his young adult daughter [who was giving some euro-kook tourist stink eye for boxing in her ride right when i got there]. i watched and waited, staying out of the way, giving away waves left + right like xmas presents. got to know the set rhythm + when the bigger waves were coming through as one by one the crowd thinned out until finally, it was just me and the dad + daughter.
we had all been out there so long that as the other folks left it seemed like we figured out that the three of us were actually surfing in pretty well with each other, and spent some nice family time enjoying it, taking turns going for waves, getting some, not getting others. by the time the surf school and some other tourists showed up i had finally gotten comfortable enough to out-paddle another surfer and maneuver into a late takeoff, which i nabbed for my final satisfying ride: four hours well-spent - merry xmas tom-A-hawk!
was just sundazed and doped-up enough on endorphins to make xmas eve dinner at ted + carl's that night a lot of fun, what w/ the red wine, their french bulldog rupert humping the little nephew every chance he got + the big southern-boy cousins belting out carols at the piano ... steve + i kept saying we were gonna go for a xmas day surf but ended up spending the day in bed watching cowboy movies on amc before a surfclub xmas dinner at kurty's place downtown - w/ conrad from london, who's here through the new year! we are lucky to have some great friends here in hawai'i.
so now it's that awesome week between xmas + new year - a full holiday week! still haven't gone surfing - we needed two days off ... in a row. steve actually worked a little this morning; i hauled the recycling, got an americano and watched the waves at queens from a bench on shore [where some random guy asked me if i knew where to get any pot and i chatted w/ a nice retired french-canadian grandma - ah, waikiki]. jimmy keeps talking about having us over to surf hawaii kai side: some secret new spot he's just discovered - 'like queens w/ no one else there' - or the aina haina death march ... but we're still just planning to get out to pops as early as we can tomorrow a.m.
surf, tom-A-hawk ! [i've started practicing my cross-step again!]
Sunday, December 24, 2006
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Saturday, December 23, 2006
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Friday, December 22, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
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Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
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Sunday, December 17, 2006
swell coming up today but not quite here yet - fluffy, mushy muffin tops starting to rise up out da water ... u kno wot? gimme da whole muffin! but we went out anyway this a.m. - ok, crowded sesh @ CANOES w/ stevie getting top honors on one majestic ride, me stayin out for just one more, didn't disappoint w/ a 007 drop + carve down a nice steep face - right in front of da best local surfer out there ... in my new local boy boardshorts! [btw we are now officially a quiksilver household]
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Saturday, December 16, 2006
jus pau POPS - windy,
junky w/ 2 much surf
school donkeys
gettin pushed in2 da
good waves ... it's
over now
tom-A-hawk
watching >choke< holiday programming tonite [incl. 'elf' + 'mean girls'], resting up for freak south swell supposed to be coming up tomorrow, lasting all week! kenzen reports they're saying biggest out-of-season south swell in december for 20 years! UI!
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Monday, December 11, 2006
Sunday, December 10, 2006
so like i mentioned - the irony is that i'm getting better wireless here at the beach house, on the north shore, in the country - than i'm getting at the condo in waikiki, like i want to be sitting around 'blogging while i'm here, but i'll try ... the highlights: fun bonfire w/ nice local boys friday night w/ a full 'good game' round of handshake introductions, bodysurfing waimea yesterday, pipe masters contest down the beach today - jamie o'brien cruized right by us on the way to + from his heat - so close i could have reached out + grabbed one of his love handles! [the source of his powers?] that started a regular parade of surf rock stars marching past us - slater paused right in front of us to put on his rash guard then hit the water w/ a superstar standing shred before he started to paddle, tom-a-hawk's new crush mick fanning cruised by a couple times before + after his heat [uncle kenzen tells me word is he likes to get drunk, get naked, and show off his other talent], surf hero of the people rob machado came by smiling, local blondie nate carroll cruised thru workin da crowd, never saw andy irons up close but saw him catch a few out there ... in their heat slater + o'brien were the ultimate showmen w/ simultaneous takeoffs: first slater taking pipe [left] + jamie going backdoor [right], then coming back w/ o'brien going right + slater going left. mick was sportin some hot b+w psycho stripe new wave board shorts, but i noticed that bruno santos, the surfer from brazil in his heat [not this guy, but - WOOF anyway] committed the faux pas of wearing the same shorts - hav to say that bruno filled out the seat of his trunks a little better tho...
in the absence of surf mom dirkdirkdirk, who just moved back to da mainland, we have all stepped up admirably in the cooking department - i even made dinner for the 4 of us on thursday nite - my [famous] linguini w/ clams. mc kicked it in yesterday incl. fresh bread - several times a day! Stevie's preparing the traditional surf club beach house pork tenderloin as i write ... after narrowly avoiding being sucked into a portal to another dimension by our surprise visitor - the ethno-botanist from maui - on friday night, i'm happy to report to jake, who unfortunately had to leave yesterday, that i've had a clear view of my chips all weekend.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
amazing to make the pacific passage, the transition from living in the middle of a continent to living in the middle of the ocean ... just like when i flew out this spring, i crossed from land to sea over san francisco: last time at a relatively low altitude right over the city w/ an incredible full color view of golden gate park and the big red bridge; this time impossibly high and to the north, with a view like the space shuttle, of the sacramento river emptying into the bay, marin, the lighthouse on the tip of point reyes, the east bay w/ thin fog in the berkeley hills and, connected by wire-thin bridges and looking like the master computer chip in the center of an endless organic circuit board, the city. it is bio-electro-magnetic to me that place, + i could feel it connecting to my nervous system like a wireless signal, lighting up my cells, realigning my molecules, drawing me back.