Just for Fun, Jan. 29, 2009

Who likes a stale blog?

DK circa 1986. (Photo/Jocks catalog)

Eastside Surfblog past entries

01/29/09

It all began innocently enough. My best friend Vinnie and I were on the phone comparing notes on his recent surf trip to Tortola and my own little run down to south Florida. When we compare notes, it’s never about scale. Because one thing I’ve learned is there is no way to “one-up” Vinnie. I’m certain that if I ever have the wherewithal to surf Tortola, Vinnie will have just returned from Micronesia, and when I got back from Micronesia, it would be to find that Vinnie had rented space on a NASA probe and spent the last light-year tube riding lava flows on Venus. So we usually stick to the things that all good surf trips have in common, like wave size, crowds, rocks and reefs, food, dysentery, snake bites, landslides, incurable tropical diseases and political coups — the usual. So anyway, we were gassing on about this and that, with me mostly complaining about crappy, cold, wet weather, when Vinnie let slip that he really had a bad case of wanting to go snowboarding and well, gee, he would have to go alone because there was nobody to go with. In the nanosecond it took for me to process this fact and combine it with the days of mandatory vacation I have left to take, the plot was hatched.

Now, receiving a two-day fun pass from Mrs. Blog is nothing to be taken lightly. Passes are usually both requested and issued with great care and consideration. So Vinnie and I packed up our stuff and hightailed it out of town before the ether wore off and Mrs. Blog and Mrs. Vinnie had time to compare notes, realize the hazard they were unleashing on society, revoke the passes and reassign us to a more closely supervised occupation like raking the yard. Vinnie’s a pretty easy guy to road-trip with. Very low maintenance and pretty much anything goes. There is one thing that you just have to concede, however, and it is that everybody on the outside of his vehicle is an idiot. If you’re on the inside, you’re safe. But once the doors close and he’s rolling, if you’re on the outside, you’re likely the subject of a running monologue which defines and dissects his observations of your shortcomings as a driver, pedestrian, homeowner, carbon-based unit or cloud of ectoplasm. If your ears were burning, it’s because we passed you by on our way to the mountains of North Carolina and your mere presence in our path created the opportunity for you to be the subject of Vinnie’s wrath.

Snowboarding on the East Coast is pretty much like surfing on the East Coast. There is always the possibility of good conditions, but you’d better prepare yourself for the probability of crappy conditions because that’s likely all you’ll get. I’m lucky in that I learned under the tutelage of the great meister DK in his backyard — the German and Austrian Alps. So after years of paying my dues in some great conditions at terrifying altitudes, I set my sights on East Coast slop. We headed for Beech Mountain because it’s the highest elevation within a half-day’s drive of here and because BlogSon2 is up there at Appalachian State, so if we were going to do something stupid, I could count on BlogSon2 to be in on it. So the conditions were as expected: marginal at best. The people in charge of the snow at Beech do a pretty good job with what they have to work with and had about four inches of man-made snow on top of a hard ice pack. So there was just enough snow to get your edge into, and you could see where the ice was exposed in enough time to either turn around it or hold your breath and ride over it. We had some fun day and night sessions, and it was satisfying for me to find out I can still board after laying out and missing all of last season. Of course, BlogSon2 was pulling off effortless and very stylish 360s and stuff like that just to remind me that I’m getting older faster than he is. With the conditions as they were, the slopes were really hard, the penalty for falling was severe and we kissed the ground a lot. At the end of a day, we were pretty beat up — to the point where we were discussing how to strap a pillow on Vinnie’s behind so he could go out for another session. That’s when BlogSon2’s friend, Holly, helpfully suggested that Vinnie just put on an extra pair of Depends. The younger generation is just so helpful and considerate. It just warms your heart. So we returned home battered but satisfied. It’s just that I can’t walk and Vinnie can’t sit. I know this is a blog about fun and I try not to mix any business in. But just this one time, I’m giving you a stock tip: Go find the company that makes ibuprofen and buy all of their stock you can afford, because me and Vinnie are eating that stuff like it was candy.

Who likes a stale blog?

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Eastside Surfblog past entries

01/29/09

It all began innocently enough. My best friend Vinnie and I were on the phone comparing notes on his recent surf trip to Tortola and my own little run down to south Florida. When we compare notes, it’s never about scale. Because one thing I’ve learned is there is no way to “one-up” Vinnie. I’m certain that if I ever have the wherewithal to surf Tortola, Vinnie will have just returned from Micronesia, and when I got back from Micronesia, it would be to find that Vinnie had rented space on a NASA probe and spent the last light-year tube riding lava flows on Venus. So we usually stick to the things that all good surf trips have in common, like wave size, crowds, rocks and reefs, food, dysentery, snake bites, landslides, incurable tropical diseases and political coups — the usual. So anyway, we were gassing on about this and that, with me mostly complaining about crappy, cold, wet weather, when Vinnie let slip that he really had a bad case of wanting to go snowboarding and well, gee, he would have to go alone because there was nobody to go with. In the nanosecond it took for me to process this fact and combine it with the days of mandatory vacation I have left to take, the plot was hatched.

Now, receiving a two-day fun pass from Mrs. Blog is nothing to be taken lightly. Passes are usually both requested and issued with great care and consideration. So Vinnie and I packed up our stuff and hightailed it out of town before the ether wore off and Mrs. Blog and Mrs. Vinnie had time to compare notes, realize the hazard they were unleashing on society, revoke the passes and reassign us to a more closely supervised occupation like raking the yard. Vinnie’s a pretty easy guy to road-trip with. Very low maintenance and pretty much anything goes. There is one thing that you just have to concede, however, and it is that everybody on the outside of his vehicle is an idiot. If you’re on the inside, you’re safe. But once the doors close and he’s rolling, if you’re on the outside, you’re likely the subject of a running monologue which defines and dissects his observations of your shortcomings as a driver, pedestrian, homeowner, carbon-based unit or cloud of ectoplasm. If your ears were burning, it’s because we passed you by on our way to the mountains of North Carolina and your mere presence in our path created the opportunity for you to be the subject of Vinnie’s wrath.

Snowboarding on the East Coast is pretty much like surfing on the East Coast. There is always the possibility of good conditions, but you’d better prepare yourself for the probability of crappy conditions because that’s likely all you’ll get. I’m lucky in that I learned under the tutelage of the great meister DK in his backyard — the German and Austrian Alps.

DK circa 1986. (Photo/Jocks catalog)

So after years of paying my dues in some great conditions at terrifying altitudes, I set my sights on East Coast slop. We headed for Beech Mountain because it’s the highest elevation within a half-day’s drive of here and because BlogSon2 is up there at Appalachian State, so if we were going to do something stupid, I could count on BlogSon2 to be in on it. So the conditions were as expected: marginal at best. The people in charge of the snow at Beech do a pretty good job with what they have to work with and had about four inches of man-made snow on top of a hard ice pack. So there was just enough snow to get your edge into, and you could see where the ice was exposed in enough time to either turn around it or hold your breath and ride over it. We had some fun day and night sessions, and it was satisfying for me to find out I can still board after laying out and missing all of last season. Of course, BlogSon2 was pulling off effortless and very stylish 360s and stuff like that just to remind me that I’m getting older faster than he is. With the conditions as they were, the slopes were really hard, the penalty for falling was severe and we kissed the ground a lot. At the end of a day, we were pretty beat up — to the point where we were discussing how to strap a pillow on Vinnie’s behind so he could go out for another session. That’s when BlogSon2’s friend, Holly, helpfully suggested that Vinnie just put on an extra pair of Depends. The younger generation is just so helpful and considerate. It just warms your heart. So we returned home battered but satisfied. It’s just that I can’t walk and Vinnie can’t sit. I know this is a blog about fun and I try not to mix any business in. But just this one time, I’m giving you a stock tip: Go find the company that makes ibuprofen and buy all of their stock you can afford, because me and Vinnie are eating that stuff like it was candy.