lines

got two two days of login in this weekend. cordless, five-over and glide and trim. you can see small kine lines comin in here. 4' @ 11 seconds is better than nottin. Blacks 'll tell ya

"when in doubt, just go. what else ya gonna do?"

why ride a bike every day?

"In the modern world it’s totally possible to live a completely safe existence. City riding adds thrills, danger, problem solving, social interactions, and adrenaline into my day. Better than coffee and goes well with beer."

from Urban Velo

bubs

breakfast 'o champions

got up this morning and went for a slow run. overnight runoff caused miniature frozen rivulets on the sidewalks and streets. most were easy to avoid but on the hill descending from my neighborhood there we so many frozen patches that it was like running around land mines. I ran slow, focusing on my foot falls and form. it was a good run.

then I took a shower and made breakfast while Moe sat in his rubber chair and bopped to the reggae blasting from the morning speakers. on the menu: course corn grits with cheddar and a little bacon, fried eggs, bacon, and toast with some good locally roasted French roast coffee.

give thanks

surf by bike trip

I've been kicking around the idea for some time now of doing a Nova Scotia surf trip by bike. the idea comes and goes each year and I've yet to commit to it. today I got the bug again.

when I first arrived in Halifax in 2006 I set out to scout some possible surf spots on my bike. I've always been quite skeptical of the interweb surf sites so I knew that I'd have to go and check for myself. the photo above is from one of my initial scouting sessions. this little spot can get good sometimes when the wind is right. the prevailing winds do not favour this spot however and I often go months without surfing there.

that photo was from the first and last time I ever took a ride to the ocean. seems silly not to do it more often.

perhaps if I could get an accomplice to come along on a bike to surf trip I may be more motivated to go through with it.

run!

"So Simple. Just move your legs. Because if you don't think you were born to run, your not only denying history. You're denying who you are."

Dennis Bramble

Halifax Fixie Freestyle?

found this while browsing a local bike forum. weird.

"The first ever fixie freestyle event has been announced for Halifax. Hardcore fixie riders are joyously celebrating the triumph of being recognized as real sportsmen and women. The event has gained some steam complete with sponsors and documentary film offers. American Apparel, Gus’s Pub and Frenchies have all pledged their support of the event.

In an effort to keep the level of sportsmanship sporty, the organizers have stated that experienced BMX riders will not be allowed to participate in the freestyle part of the event, however they are welcome to compete in the longest track stand and skid competition. The BMX community could not be contacted for comment –err actually when contacted they yawned and went on about their business, uninterested in continuing any further with the conversation.

Unbeknownst to the BMX and skateboard community the fixers are lobbying city officials for their own bike park, claiming that the streets will be overrun with fixies by next summer if immediate action is not taken. City officials refused to comment about fund allocations for the park. However, one official was overheard remarking that he’d never seen such an undernourished community group and wondered if perhaps the city should instead provide free meals to the fixers.

The organizers of the Fixie Freestyle event are also planning to start a bike polo league this coming summer. At the moment they are in talks with the NYC bike polo association to establish some grounds rules for the league, especially relating to appropriate handlebar width and whether team members are allowed to use different colour Oury grips. The excitement continues to build and riders can be seen all over the city practicing six inch wallies and long skids down Citadel Hill during snow flurries."

Hector Bustin Fixie Tricks @ Freestyle Toozdays from Dunamis Media on Vimeo.

happy birthday bob

jah, ever living, ever strong.

don't worry

four dubyahs

who: an 18 year old kid outta high school with a little grit, no sense, a library job for gas money and a white Karmann Ghia

what: a passion for moving across space atop magic carpets - concrete or water didn't matter

when:same as now -as much as can be fit in between things that otherwise matter less to him

how: with graceless abandon, sometimes timidity, in the heat of summer, with duct tape, no leash, behind the beach house after the hurricanes with no one out north of the pier, with cigarette dangling sometimes, with disregard for self harm -mostly always -no always passionately.

the author not the writer

Where do I begin? Over the past two weeks I’ve been endlessly devouring information as is so easy to do in the interwebs. Where has it gotten me? I have no fucking idea. One aspect of my personality that never seems to go away is this feeling of always wanting to do something, always on the verge of something great. Who knows if it’s simply remnants of childhood dreams of escape or if it’s adult escapism.

In an attempt to better understand myself I always ponder about my motivation to do “something.” For a long long time now, since my early teens I reckon, I’ve wanted to be a writer. I always pictured myself as a writer, doing readings and interviews, thumbing through the pages of my own books and admiring the fonts and page layouts. But therein lays the joke which I played on myself. I mean, I could I suppose, blame the joke on my ego. That is if there were a way to separate the I from the I. But their ain’t no way. So the joke is this: all I ever dreamed about was the fame and not the written word!

Big surprise eh! What a fucking brilliant mind I have. Well it’s probably why instead of writing wholeheartedly over the past twenty years I’ve got a half a book shelf of half scribbled-in journals and notebooks with hardly a word worth reading, and I don’t mean public reading, I mean me reading. I keep luggin the goddamned journals first from town to city, then across country and finally across the continent. And for what? Inspiration, material, nostalgia? I’ll tell you why –it’s a central theme in this here blog and for most blogs I guess. It’s for ego. Simple.

I mean who doesn’t want a legacy? Who wants to be forgotten? And who doesn’t want some recognition of their humanity within their own lifetime, even while they still have some youthful vigor? I’ll let you answer that one.

So here I am. Left to my own devices I’ll continue to devour information on the interwebs which will do me absolutely no favors. It’s a tedious life this life. Lucky for me there’s more to my life than ego and misinformation. Moe and B are waiting at home for to me cook super together, play together and dream together.

lingering conclusions

conclusions are not common
in real life
lingering admonishments,
like mid-morning moon opposing sun


a master of mistake
so good have I become
that irony
has rubbed clean off

lingering remorse
like day after
stomach flu
belly burn

a master of apology
irony lost
conclusions are like
winning lotto tickets

time does not wait
wrongs not righted
but forks in the road provide
the choice a wiser man would choose

to linger in thought
perchance this time
to go left
up that leaf covered path
where loved ones await
with open arms for now

lingering doubt should be
extinguished
resolution resolved
remorse restored
to quiet confidence
and peace
of longing
mind

uh huh

"well, well, well mister. you find yerself sittin behind a new desk, a bigger screen, a window. and a wha? a who?"

uh huh.

swells are marchin into the headland that I like best. I know it.

haven’t seen it.

bike rides in blowing snow. late to work on the first week. looks of surprise on co-workers faces. different culture.

I’m older than most and yet younger. less conservative perhaps? more active? more immature? all of the above?

dubcasts keep me sane and in the right riddim ‘n vibes.

got a a vampire story brewin in my head. but not bat vampires. more like blood drinkers –like the old time boys in Papua New Guinea who’d drink the blood of their enemies for strength. got the story marinatin in my head –post no-pocalypse type shit if you get my drift.

what else?
being a dad is rad.

need to start running again. next week on lunch breaks will do fine.

I need to feel these bones and muscles and tendons of mine movin and flexin or otherwise just give up and join the zombie crowds in zombie land.

we do live in our dreams you know. but dreams need not have concrete physical boundaries. we can live and play and dream in sleep and awake states. just ignore the rubbish, the sounds of zombies telling you how it is and should be and just do a thing.

i’m out.

Vice guide to Liberia

one of my favourite Canadian bloggers (by way of Monrovia, Liberia)has just completed a project with Vice's VBS TV on traveling in Liberia. Liberia has an odd and often turbulent history and is now coming into its own after years of bloody civil war. The Esteyonage blog written by Myles Estey is one of my favourite places on the web. Mr. Estey gives us a view into another world. his ability to find humour in every day life in Monrovia is often a sense of inspiration for me. and once inna while Mr. Estey will post some surfy news.

adventuring

big bombs. shifty. high tide refracting off the headland and making it all warbly.

got a few really good ones, a few not so good ones.

got pitched on about a 10 foot face, hood filled with ice water and felt like I would pass out. stunned as I finally came up for a gasping breath.

another wall of white water. try to duck dive to no avail. the white lifting me and pressing me down down down towards the bottom.

cold. stunned.

paddle exhausted towards the bay and back to position.

all in all a good session but I won't make a habit of going far from home. more hours driving than surfing.

still it was just a friend and I on a mackin point, the bows of the trees laden with fresh snow, the water a deep turquoise, and the sun shining it's mid-winter warmth on our faces.

tired tonight.

a good tired.

forward trim

I've been really diggin the longboard again lately and the feeling of forward trim. saturday morning I surfed alone for a little over an hour on some little knee high rights. the waves had just enough wave face to allow for perfect trim. the feeling of standing on the board motionless while gliding across the wave face is like no other. there's no posturing, no macho antics, just the board beneath your feet and the passing of time as energy through water.

this year I've resolved to learn to surf all of the boards I have and to not acquire any others. with the exception of the mini-gun, my quiver consists of high volume boards -from the 5'8" fish, to the 6'0" speed egg, to the 6'3" old yeller seventies singlefin, my shortboard quiver is made to catch waves. so that's what I plan to do. I want to take the time to learn what it is that I like and dislike about board design so that I can get closer to the feeling of surfboard as extension to my body.

one thing I know for certain, the high performance shortboard is not my idea of the most fun to be had. I prefer the ease of paddling and instant speed of a board with a wider front end. performance shortboards can be super fast with constant rider input but I find that that approach does not allow me to notice what's going on around me as my focus is singular. with the high volume shortboards speed is built in so that I can focus instead on the way that the wave forms and unfolds in front of me.

I am also a fan of style like Jay Adams skating a pool or Gonz skating a rail or as in the photo below, Tyler Warren in forward trim. style is harder to come by when your shakin yer tail feather trying to keep the board from boggin. and there's nothin less stylish than me struggling to surf a performance shortboard -the hops and wiggles are more akin to a red wriggler on a hot summer sidewalk.



inspiration:

Picaresque
Warbles

sunrise & sopes

Halifax police love cyclists

I hate cops. yes it's true. just about every single interaction I've ever had with police has been negative -and no, I've never been arrested. as a teenager in Florida my friends and I were constantlyharassed by the police for skateboarding. it's one thing to tell a kid to stop skating at a spot, it's another to put them in the back of the police cruiser without reading them their rights only to drive them around for a scare. there was another incident where my friend Beau and I were picked up blocks away from my house for allegedly trespassing onto the church roof directly across the street from my house. my Dad was pissed. we hadn't been anywhere near that damned roof.

I gotta say that cops in Canada are whole lot nicer than in the US. at least here I don't feel like I'm the prey and the pigs are the hunters. but generally I think, people who choose to be cops (and those who get the jobs) are generally dumb (a necessary quality for the job) and like to bully.

yesterday I was slogging against a way-below-freezing head wind on my way home from work. the street is a one way and that part of town is known for hookers, drug dealers and several unsolved violent crimes and murders over the past couple of years. so I'm going the right way up the one way, blinking tail light on, and parka hood over my helmet to cut the wind. this cop cruiser pulls up next to me. there's three cops in the car -one in the back. driver cop rolls down his window and asks me to stop.

"are you knew around here?" he asks

"nope"

"you know we have a helmet law?"

"yup" I say and pull off the parka hood so he can see that I am dutifully wearing a helmet. before I have a chance to finish pulling off the parka hood he says,

"that helmet is not approved."

I can tell he's feeling a little dumb for his initial approach.

"whadaya mean" I say knowing good and well that my ProTec skate helmet fits the CPSC regulations just fine.

"that helmet is not approved. it' supposed to have a stamp or sticker on it" he says to me again as I start taking the helmet off to prove him wrong.

"I'm just letting you know" he says as he and his two silent partners pull away leaving me there standing in the middle of a one way, just a block away from the site of the most recent unsolved murder of a First Nations girl, steps from the home of a guy who's always slingin some kinda dope, and they drive off having performed their all important civic duty.

so you see, I hate cops. they have strange priorities.

more love for Halifax cycling and cops here

first surf of the year

had my first dip in the ocean in the new year today. the water has gotten a bit colder since the last time I surfed at home -about a month ago. I rode the log for about two hours in mostly waist high glassy rights. today was most definitely a login day. lotsa guys on shortboards but only three of them could make a go of it with such small mushy surf. the photo below is from a place I checked but chose not to surf. looks good too though.



it's a new year and really for me that don't mean much. my calender seems to revolve more around surf seasons. the difference this year is that I start a new job in two weeks. over the past three years I've had a lot of flexibility to surf when there is swell. I have certainly taken advantage of that freedom too, missing nary a swell with just a couple of exceptions. in job interviews I always make it clear that work/life balance is as important to me as pay. usually that approach pays off as the old saying says "you never know until you ask."

really though I am looking forward to a little change even if I am apprehensive about not surfing as much. perhaps one day soon I'll figure out the angle to surf more and work less. in the meantime I'll keep hustlin for more water time.

bok tower gardens

in the heart of central Florida is this place...





even sandbars have views