August & Beyond
It seems Gabe has decided to stay with us afterall. After a last minute wait-list decision at UCLA went favorably for him, Gabe quickly traded the snow and wind of Chicago for the sand and surf of LA. Granted he'll be up in Westwood, but 20 miles isn't too far to surf, especially for someone as messed up on the surf bug as Gabe is. Dirk Dauminator might even retain its current residence in the 702 garage.

So the surf crew lives on. Gabe and Ryan will be starting law school (Ryan also got into UCLA last minute) and Nick will resume teaching soon, but April has less work hours per week and god knows I have some flexibility in my schedule. It only be once a week or so, but we'll get out there. We may not post about ti, but we'll get out there. Unless I almost drowned again.

July 10th
After a non-stop around-the-clock summer beach party, Gabe and Paul finally decided to let someone else have a try with surfing this afternoon. Sam got out there, sprained ankle and all, and JD had committed to 90-percent-coming earlier in the day. Actually, he decided not to go at the last minute, but did later show up and hid in a utility closet at the Manhattan Beach lifeguard station to watch.

Donning a thrift store T-shirt from an arbitrary Indiana Jr. High, Sam bravely attempted a few get-up moves before calling it a day from being to cold. Some might call it not wanting it bad enough, but anybody who witnessed Sam charging the surf all messed up on bravado would know otherwise. It may not have been “Carpool” quality, but it was definitely the best day of surfing yet.

- Posted by Sam and JD

July 18th
We tried our luck in Malibu this morning, which sadly I don't have a good picture of because it was damn beautiful. It was also damn hard.

Everyone is Malibu is very, very good at surfing, so they only need about two inches of room to catch a wave, get up, and dodge deftly around anyone near them and ride it for several minutes (which is how long the waves break for in Malibu - it's pretty sweet). Thus they all back together and there are about 200 surfers per square acre of ocean. We, being at somewhat a lower level than these people, had more trouble. I caught several waves, but promptly fell off every one because the swirl was significantly different that what I'm used to and I kept losing my balance. Either that or I'd run into someone. Gabe caught about 2 waves. Ryan didn't catch any.

It's very pretty in Malibu. And very frustrating. But at least there was a Jack In The Box nearby for us to console ourselves with dollar tacos.

- Posted by Paul

July 8th
At last, we have pictures! I give you the cast of Surf Summer 2004.

NAME:	DIRK DAUMINATOR	THE CHIEF	CRAPTASTIC	Boogie boards
BECAUSE:	Dauminator because it's written on the board (aren't we creative). Dirk because it's huge. Yeah.	No, not because it's red. OK, partly because it's red. But more because it needed a name that was big and intimidating. And also because people who call people "Chief" are funny.	Because it sucks.

Why do we name them? Because all surf boards must have names. Obviously.

We'll get pictures of Ryan's and April's boards as soon as I have them. They're purdy too.

- Posted by Paul

July 5th
Sadly, we’ve recently received word that founding-father Gabe will be leaving us at the end of the summer to pursue his law school dreams, changing the face of our surfing team and forever crippling the diversity of material in this Surf Log.

But in the meantime much more surfing is to be had, and the Gabe Memorial Surf Contingent (GMSC) grows ever stronger. April Lane has brought female representation and a brand new Supermodel board to the group, and has filled out the posse to nearly a baker’s half-dozen. This thing’s catching on, people. Climb aboard.

- Posted by Paul

June 26th
I like to go surfing.

- Posted by Gabe

June 20th
We’re actually starting to get sort of good. And by “sort of good” I don’t mean good, I just mean we’ve passed the tier of terrible beginners and are even threatening to climb up into the echelon of “Intermediate.”

There seem to be 3 levels of surfing prowess, each with its own set of skills and adequacies. At the "Beginner" level one is just trying to catch the momentum of any kind of wave, and if possible try and stand up. At the "Intermediate" level you can get up fairly easily and ride until the wave dies out, and perhaps even attempt such drastic stunts as "turning" and "catching big waves," and then of course the needed side-skills of "trying not to die when failing to catch big waves." Finally the "Advanced" level contains those who shred waves and fly off them like jumps, and dare to get up on tsunami-sized waves like the kind that broke my board and occur after earthquakes.

- Posted by Paul

June 18th
Now that school's out Gabe's got a lot of time on his hands, and we've also got a lot of other teachers who are interested in joining our surfing shenanigans. Ryan White and Nick Liske joined us today to make it a foursome, and performed amazingly well during their short stints on our borrowed boards. We also tried out Manhattan Beach, which we're finding to be one of the best spots. The parking meters are even cheaper than Hermosa.

In more gruesome news today, however, I accrued probably the worst and certainly the grossest surf injury to date.

- Posted by Paul

June 1st
For a change we tried out Venice Beach today, where the water was especially eye-stinging but we were not let down by the degree of zaniness and people-watching that can be done there. The first thing we saw upon taking the beach was two guys smoking a doobie in broad daylight. Only in Venice to they still call it a doobie, by the way.

There were basketball games a-plenty and tons of street acts, as well as huge jacked dudes lifting weight in the outdoor muscle beach gym. Apparently it's not just a myth. And the surfing? Fair to good, especially the tourists who asked us to stop on our way out so they could take a picture of the "surfer guys". We're officially part of the scene.

- Posted by Paul

May 23rd
OK, so the new boards are in full effect. I finally caved and bought another used board from a local surf shop, ironically one that had been put back together from two halves after a me-style accident. Which explains why it was so cheap. Which also explains why it's so heavy.

Gabe is still riding well on his buoyant yacht-sized board, which has now taken on the name of Dirk Dauminator; Dauminator because it's written on the board, and Dirk just because, well, or the sheer girth of the thing. I guess that's what you do with surf boards, name them. At least when they're the size of boats. At least that's what we do.

- Posted by Paul

May 16th

- Posted by Gabe

May 8th
Best day of surfing yet. Or at least boogie-boarding. A key factor was a location change from El Porto to Hermosa Beach near the pier. The waves are a little smaller here but a little more regular, and as we've discovered bigger waves aren't exactly the best thing for us anyway. Plus most of them break closer to shore, in many cases where it's shallow enough to stand, so very little swimming is needed. You can just stand in chest deep water and wait for a wave to come along, then jump up on top and ride them home. It also doesn't hurt that it's getting warmer and my shorty wetsuit is no longer just a monument to stubborness.

We both caught a few terrific boogie-board runs, some of them ten seconds or longer, and we're starting to get a hold of the whole steering thing. We rode a couple of waves all the way to the shore, in some cases only bailing out when the board hit the sand and catipulted us up onto the beach like kids thrown over the handlebars of their bicycles. Still not much luck getting up on Gabe's board though... the damn thing's just too small to support our weight, so even when you catch a wave when you try to stand it's like trying to stand on top of a life preserver. At least the leash cuts your foot up really bad.

- Posted by Paul

January 10th-May 1st, 2004
Welcome to Gabe and Paul's surf log. On this page we will document our ongoing attempt to learn how to hang ten, or at least drown trying. There might even be groovy pictures.

Since we didn't come up with this idea until our 12th outing or so (Gabe and I are famous for coming up with silly ideas like this, though sometimes it takes us a while), there will be a bit of back-logging at first. Our first two outings, highlighted by bare-backing and breaking a surfboard in two, were covered in Paul's Ponderings, but here's a quick rundown of how things have gone since then:

We're still not very good.

OK, actually we've gotten a lot better, but I still don't have a new surf board due to budget cuts and Gabe's has proven a little tricky to use. The biggest strides we've made have been in the boogie-board realm, practicing on a $35 dollar board I picked up Sportmart and a $30 dollar board Gabe picked up at Sam's Club. Both new. Man, this is a much cheaper and easier sport than surfing.

Anyway plans are in the works for more actual surfing, so we'll keep you updated on our antics and mishaps as they come. Because few things Gabe and Paul do together don't involve antics and mishaps. Or pandemonium.

- Posted by Paul