Farmer Dax
Posted on January 8th, 2007 by Dax.
Categories: blog post.
When I was around 9 or 10 years old I belonged to the local 4H, and had a decent little garden in my mother’s backyard. After all of the folks at 4H had seen how great my garden was I basically abandoned it.
Spracky and I have always lived in an apartment since we have been together, but I have had the urge to do some gardening from time to time…not flowers but vegetables and herbs. I saw one of these products that allows you to grow vegetables and what not on your balacony, but the ones that I liked were a little bit out of our price range.
Well, for the holidays my inlaws got me this:
It’s pretty cool. Spracky and I drove around for almost a full day trying to find decent tomatoes, but could only find one good plant, but it still needed a little nursing.
The tomatoes hang from the top, and we have basil and rosemary on the top.
Here is a picture of our first little ‘maters:
Thanks inlaws!
Dax out-
Out of the frying pan and into the fire
Posted on January 7th, 2007 by Dax.
Categories: blog post.
I know it’s been a while since I posted, a lot of things have happened since my last post.
Spracky and I made it back from Costa Rica, I will add those posts soon.
I got a job, so I have a little less time to post.
The holidays have come and gone.
Unfortunately, while we were in Costa Rica we gained a new downstairs neighbor, some soroity girls from the local university moved in. I should have known it was a bad sign the night we came back from Costa Rica one of the girls boyfriends was out in the rain yelling and crying about her.
We have had several problems with these two youngs women, partying till 4:00 AM, doors slamming all hours of the day and night, the television in the master bedroom cranked real loud all through the night.
We first tried to let the girls know of the problems, but they eventually told management that they no longer wanted to hear from us. So we have had to call the cops in the middle of the night to tell the girls to keep it down, like that’s something that the police should have to deal with. We feel that the management of our complex just doesn’t have the guts to do their job, and to evict the girls.
Right before the holidays the girls had a huge party on their patio. Spracky had had enough, she called up management the next morning and cussed the living hell out of the manager. I then called him to play as the “good cop” and explained to him the mess that was left on the patio of the girls.
When I got home from lunch I went and spoke with the manager again, and they agreed that it appeared as though things have gotten out of hands and that they were going to ask the girls to move somewhere else in the complex…that’s right, become someone elses problem within the apartment complex…how nice of management.
This morning at 3:00 AM, we hear some guy yelling and hollering in their living room, and finally around 4:00 AM it stopped.
I wrote management a long letter expressing the need for their involvement once again, I will post it at the bottom of this post.
Then today the girls keep slamming the front door and carrying on out in the parking lot like a couple of whores.
I have always tried to keep my exact location a little bit of a secret on this blog, but I need to state the following: The Delta Gamma girls at University of North Florida are disrespectful little bitches! They are immature little shits that should have their sorority at UNF removed.
That’s how I feel, and that’s what a blog is for, to spread your thoughts.
Spracky and I both long for the days when our old downstairs neighbor only played the saxophone in the middle of the day.
Here is the letter that I gave to management today, enjoy.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
To Whom It May Concern:
At 3:08 AM, on Sunday, January 07, 2007, my wife and I, who reside in apartment A, were woken up by a male voice yelling and hollering from the living room of apartment B. This yelling did not appear to be of an angry tone, but that of a jovial one. We could not tell exactly what was being said, but we could hear the “F-word” being used several times. This continued for approximately one hour. After about an hour we heard the front door slam shut and it appeared as though the individual had vacated the premises.
We have made numerous verbal complaints about the current residents of apartment B to your office before, as well as to the local authorities, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, in the short time since these individuals gained residence in This Apartment Complex, which was approximately the last week in October 2006.
After seeking guidance on this issue from an outside party we were instructed to begin filing our complaints in writing.
At this time we would like to point out that even though the residents of B continue to be disrespectful towards the residents of this apartment community, we continue to ensure that we are maintaining our efforts to not encroach on their request of not being contacted at the time of these disturbances.
We understand that the residents of B, as do we, have the right to have guests in their residence. The difference being, we try to respect the apartment community and keep the noise to a minimum after the hour of 10:00 PM and before the hour of 6:00AM, as to not disturb any of the other residents. When we have company between these hours, we make sure that our guests keep their voices down, and we even request that they remove their shoes so as to not cause any extra noise that could occur during their movements around the apartment. We understand that we are residing in a “shared-wall” community, and we believe that we are taking the necessary measures to ensure that we are not an audible nuisance to the residents in this apartment community.
We, at this time, feel that our rights for the pursuit of a healthy lifestyle are being abused by the residents in B. Our continued lack of a “full nights sleep” is definitely beginning to taking it’s toll.
After we were contacted by your office as to the possibility that we were in some way violating their rights with our need to rest during the hours that they were entertaining company, we began to try to calculate a period of time in which we would be able to get a “full nights sleep” and to maintain employment with our current employers. Our current employers require that we are in the office by 8:00 AM, and that we are to leave the office no later than 6:00 PM. It appears as though the residents of apartment B usually begin “making noise” around 8:00 PM and usually cease to do so some time around 4:00 AM. Due to these constraints we were unable to find an eight hour period of time in which we would be able to receive a “full nights sleep”.
We do not wish to be a burden on the management of This Apartment Complex, or the other members of this apartment community. We wish only to receive the same respect and extra measures that are needed when residing in a “shared-wall” community.
We feel that we have every right to stay within this community and believe that due to the fact that we are following all requirements as agreed upon in the lease, we should not be made to vacate or relocate within the community.
We hope that management will understand that this matter needs to be addressed expeditiously to ensure that all residents involved may begin to return to the lifestyle that they have the right to maintain within the confines of the agreed upon lease and it’s terms.
Thank you for your time,
Dax out-
Day 5 - Paradise Found, Now What?
Posted on October 24th, 2006 by Dax.
Categories: blog post.
Last night a huge thunderstorm came rolling over the mountains and the thunder was crazy loud. At one point it sounded like the hotel got hit by lightning. It woke us up out of a dead sleep. We honestly thought someone had shot a rocket launcher or something.
Now that we had found Avellana, we weren’t quite sure where to head next.
Since it had rained so hard last night we really didn’t feel like going for a drive to Grande or Avellana.
Earlier in the week we saw some people taking a boat ride across El Estero to Playa Grande, and we thought that maybe we could do that after the tide had come in a bit.
So we relaxed around the hotel and checked out the shops in Tamarindo. We had lunch at a little cafe right on the main stretch of road that goes through Tamarindo.
We packed up our backpack and started walking north up the beach to Playa Grande. We got to El Estero, which has been known to have plenty of crocodiles, and paid the boat driver 300 Colones each for a ride across.
I was starting to feel pretty stoked due to the adventure we were taking; first walking up the beach, then a boat ride across crocodile infested waters and then another healthy walk to find a spot to head out and try to catch some waves that I had never riden before.
Spracky was starting to feel a little ill in the stomach, so we didn’t walk all the way up to Playa Grande, but we stopped at a huge tree stump that was in the surf, and I paddled out to catch some waves.
There were some beginners on the beach getting instruction, and they paddled out, but only to the reform area. I could see that Spracky was looking uncomfortable on the beach, and we headed back down the beach, caught the water taxi back to Tamarindo, and walked back to the hotel.
Spracky started to feel a little better once we got back to the hotel. The surf started to pick up at Pico Pequeno, so I headed out to get some surfing in.
It was still an hour or so until sunset, and I could hear some thunder from the otherside of the mountain. As the rain started to come in the waves started to lose what little bit of chop that they had. I got some really fun rides in, and they were from the outside all the way in.
The rain started falling so hard that it started to sting, I began to really wish that I had worn my surfskin.
The crowd started to get really thick. I was sitting on the outside, when I went to turn around to catch a wave that was coming and I had at least 5 to 10 people that were in my way. I kept surfing, but most of the rides were just trying to manuever around people.
As I was paddling back out to the outside after a decent ride, I saw a huge lightning bolt up the beach right in front of the parking lot in town. It was freaky bright, and a lot of surfers started to head in. This helped the situation a little, but it was definitely getting darker out due to the storm and the approaching sunset.
I caught a couple more waves and headed in. As I was running up to the hotel Spracky was standing at the door cursing at me…Spracky hates lightning, I grew up in central Florida which is the lightning capitol of the world, so I am used to it. I just smiled and got ready for dinner.
The storm broke just long enough for us to see our first sunset since we had been in Costa Rica. Here are a few pictures that can be found on our Flickr account 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 .
Dax out-
Day 4 - Avellana or Bust
Posted on October 23rd, 2006 by Dax.
Categories: blog post.
Today we woke up to clear skies, super-bright sun, and lush green mountainsides. Today was going to be the day, Playa Avellana or Bust.
We quickly ate breakfast and packed up the family truckster, a Prado. Today I was not going to make the same mistakes I made in the past couple of attempts. We didn’t even bother going the route that the signs stated to go, we were going to go inland and attack Avellana from the south.
We followed the map towards de Abril, and along the way we started to see signs for Playa Negro, which is just south of Avellana. We decided to follow these set of signs. The road quickly turned into a one vehicle wide mudride. We had been driving for a while and I thought for sure we were lost, there were only fences along the trail. We saw two guys standing next to a telephone booth, that’s right a telephone booth out in the middle of nowhere along a muddy trail. I stopped and asked them if we were going the correct way for Avellana, and they said yes!!! This was a very good feeling.
We kept down this mudpath, that started changing elevations and the mud started to get more moist, this was definitely a driving adventure. I kept having to drop into 4 wheel drive and drive up on the side of the trail where the grass had added a little more traction.
And finally we started to see these little “surfing” hotels that I had seen pictures of online, this meant that we were very close to Playa Avellana.
The mud started to get more packed and then, there it was, the ocean, we had finally made it to Avellana. We turned down a road that parelled the beach, and pulled into a makeshift parking lot. It was low tide and the ocean was pretty far out there, the waves weren’t that great, but it looked like they would be great once the tide started to come back in. We were really stoked just to finally get there.
As we headed out of the parking lot we saw the same signs that would have led us back to the road that had been washed out, I bet it is a hell of a lot quicker trip when it’s dry.
We made it back to the hotel and I started thinking that maybe we could head out to Avellana after the tide came back in but first we had some time to kill. We decided to walk down to Madero and take some pictures. You can see these pictures in our Flickr account, but here are the direct links to the pictures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34.
While we were down at Madero, I slipped on some of the lava rocks and jam my toe nail on my left foot, and gouged some of my foot out in the process.
We got a little lunch and I tried to relax a little due to my foot hurting a bit.
I thought that we could also go check out Playa Grande, so we headed back out in the family truckster.
We found our way there pretty easily, but neither of us really trusted the parking situation at all, and we hurried back to the hotel.
The tide was coming in and sundown was just a couple of hours away, so I decided to head out at Pico Pequeno. I figured with the mid to high tide being so close to sundown that it probably wouldn’t be wise for us to try to go back to Playa Avellana, go suring and try to find our way back in the dark.
It was nice to finally hit the surf!!! I paddled out past the rocks and was sitting there with a local who was on a longboard. The sets started to head in and he got a couple of good waves and I got a couple of good waves.
The waves were about head high, with an occasional wave or two a little overhead. It wasn’t long until some other people that were surfing in town noticed that we had the spot all to ourselves, and they paddle out past the rocks.
I stayed out until right before sunset, and I know Spracky could see the grin on my face the entire walk back up to the hotel.
Today was a good day.
Dax out-
Day 3 - The Adventure Continues
Posted on October 22nd, 2006 by Dax.
Categories: blog post.
Today we woke up right around sunrise, 5:30 AM, to even more rain. We had breakfast and started to head out.
The sun snuck out for a little bit, and our odds were looking good to finally find Avellana.
We tried the original path that had the washed out road. This time when we pulled up and saw a tourist in a rental vehicle just like ours was stuck in the river, with water up to the middle of his windshield. They were coming from the opposite direction, I guess the water didn’t look as deep from the other side of the road.
They were all standing at the riverbank talking with locals, I guess they were trying to figure out how to get the car out. I really felt bad for them.
We started to head back to where we ran into the second dead-end where the semi was stuck in the mud, but the mud getting there was just too crazy. At one point our vehicle was basically sliding sideways, and it was no longer fun.
On our way back I saw a sign for a different way to Avellana, so we decided to try it out. The road condition was a lot better, but it kept heading inland. The road kept cutting into the country. We were beginning to see even more lush mountainsides. We turned where the sign told us to go, and eventually ran into dead-end number three. And here is a close up. We found out later that this road was actually a real dead-end that does just simply stop in the river.
Obviously, by this time I was really pissed. I decided that we needed to head back to the hotel and regroup, it was still very early in the day.
We chilled at the hotel for a couple of hours and I checked out the waves, nothing yet due to it being low tide. So we decided to head north and try to find the road to Playa Grande.
The roads heading north up the coast were a little bit better than to the south. We beleive that the roads are a little bit better taken care of up that way due to Playa Flamingo, which is a huge resort area. We were doing pretty fine until we hit this small town and got totally lost. We no longer saw any signs for Playa Grande, and we actually ended up next to a baseball field where it looked like some of the locals were starting up a game.
We found our way back out of town and headed even further north toward Playa Flamingo and Playa Brasilito.
By this time the sun was really blazing, it was really nice to see some blue skys. I guess we were so elated with the sun that we got a little lost again. I was following traffic, which was one red Tercel in front of me. Next thing I know, we are driving down a road that looks like it was definitely off the regular path. It was like we were driving through a neighborhood.
We came to an area where the road was a little thinner than our vehicle, the bushes were hitting each side of the vehicle. Then we got extremely lucky, and we ended up on this beautiful beach. We never found out the name of the beach, but it looked like it was probably not a place that tourists frequented. Up the coast about a mile we could see some locals playing football (not american football, but real football). It was a real find. If you want to see some additional photos of this beach you can find them here.
We headed back out on the correct path and found our way to Playa Flamingo. This was definitely more touristy, and we decided that we would head back to the hotel so I could check out the surf and maybe get a little wet.
The tide was still out a bit, so we headed down to Madero (Punta San Francisco), which is the southern tip of Tamarindo Bay. As we walked along we could see some more lava rocks and a couple of hardend lava flows.
When we got to Madero the wind was really blowing and felt really good due to the Equatorial sun beating down on us. We kept walking south, around Madero, and the beach was virtually empty. Along this part of the beach there are just a couple of Bed & Breakfasts’ hidden up in the trees, it appeared to be very remote, which was kind of nice.
We hiked on for quite a distance, but we figured that we better head back because the tide was coming in, and we would have to climb over the rocks at Madero. By the time we got back to Madero the tide was already pushing up the rocks and we had to half way wade threw the water while the waves were breaking over the rocks. We made it through without a scratch, and headed back to the hotel.
When we got back, the surf was still pretty crappy, and the crowds were crazy thick, I guess due to it being Sunday, I hope.
The rain started to pick up again, but it was getting close to the end of daylight for the day, so we didn’t mind relaxing for the rest of the day.
If the sun comes out tomorrow, we plan on hiking back to Madero to take some pictures, and hopefully I can finally get some surfing in…and maybe, just maybe we will finally make it to Playa Avellana.
Dax out-
Day 2 - The Adventure Begins
Posted on October 21st, 2006 by Dax.
Categories: blog post.
We started today at breakfast at the hotel. This was the one meal a day that we get for free because it was part of our hotel package, so we made sure to get a good meal. It was a great spread of food, not like some sort of continental breakfast you get at hotels back in the states.
We began to look for Playa Avellana, which was located just south of Tamarindo. We drove back through Villa Real, and took a right. This was brand new territory for us from this point on. Luckily there were plenty of signs pointing us toward Playa Avellana, unfortuneately the roads got worse the further we drove. It had been raining for a day or two, and it was still raining as we journied down the road.
We continued to follow the signs that pointed to Avellana until we hit our first problem, the road had washed out. Luckily there was somebody in front of us, and they stopped before they got to the “river“.
I remembered seeing a fork in the road earlier on that led to this part of the road, so we headed back and followed the fork. The road kept getting more and more slippery. At times I wasn’t driving the vehicle as much as I was just aiming it in a particular direction.
I saw some additional signs that pointed to the Avellana Surf Camp. Unfortuneately, we hit another dead-end, a semi truck full of sod was stuck in the mud at a section of the road that was barely wide enough to fit a single vehicle.
We started to drive back to the hotel, and the rain started to get worse. Then we ended up at this little bridge that we had crossed on the way out, it was right next to Hacinda Pinilla. When we got back to the bridge, it was no longer a bridge but more like a bump in the river. We had no other choice but to cross it, otherwise we would have been trapped here until the rains, and the river, had let up. You can see our crossing here. This video is only 5.5 meg, so, unless you have dialup it shouldn’t take that much time to load.
At this point I was tired of being stressed out from driving in the terenchal rain and crazy mud, so we headed back to Tamarindo Diria.
It continued to rain for the rest of today, and we just checked out some of the local shops and got some more maps to try to plan for tomorrow.
Playa Avellana is starting to become something of a myth, but I am hoping that we can find this place soon and I am hoping to surf it before we head back to the states.
Dax out-
Day 1 - Arrival to Costa Rica
Posted on October 20th, 2006 by Dax.
Categories: blog post.
Today, Spracky and I began our adventure down to Costa Rica. We landed in Liberia, Costa Rica to a deluge of rain. The airport in Liberia (Daniel Oduber International) isn’t so much an airport, as it is a runway with a large open hanger. After taking off from Hartsfield airport in Atlanta, this was definitely a little bit of a surprise.
We were rushed over to immagration and through customs. Before we knew it we were out among a dozen or so different car rental employees with signs that stated their customer’s name on it. I saw our guy, from Europcar, and his porter quickly grabbed our four bags, including my 7′6″ surfboard bag. The driver escorted Spracky and I with an umbrella, to his shuttle and told us we could get in to stay dry while the porter loaded our bags.
Spracky and I did not speak much spanish, so we were a bit worried about communicating with the locals on this trip.
Luckily, our driver spoke english. Our driver, I beleive he said his name was Jason, was very accomodating, and drove us to pick up our car. Along the way Spracky and I started to get a glimpse of what we would see over the next week. The roads were really bumpy, and the landscape was breathtaking. Most of the country lives below poverty and it showed. But the people that we saw were almost always smiling.
We pulled up to a small building on a grassy, bumpy lot and got out. Jason told us to go inside and he would load our bags into the vehicle. Spracky and I went inside and met Jorje who filled out the remainder of our paperwork, and made some pretty good recommendations that saved us potentially a $1000 U.S.
We asked Jorje for a map and directions to Tamarindo. I had already read on the net that there wasn’t much in the way of street signs or signs stating what town you drove into, these types of niceity’s that we take for granted in the U.S. were not to be expected here. Jorje tried to explain the route to us, but he told us to follow the signs, and that worried me.
We headed out on our adventure in a Toyota Prado, which is equivalent to the 4Runner in the U.S. It had 4-wheel drive, which is a must in Costa Rica. It’s a pretty spacious vehicle, and Jason was able to fit all of our luggage inside it.
Spracky and I headed down the bumpy road to our destination of Tamarindo Diria. The rain was still in full force, any the pavement wasn’t as bad as it was going to get. We followed a sign that pointed to Tamarindo, and found ourselves driving down a half-rock/half-mud road. There were cars driving straight at us and then getting out of the way at the last minute. Apparently this is the way you are suppose to drive in Costa Rica, you try to find the least bumpy route down the road, and if you encounter oncoming traffic, you just simply move out of the way at the last second.
As we travelled down the road it was difficult not to notice how beautiful the mountains and lush green fields were. There were a number of dogs running along the road and then we found ourselves in a Costa Rican traffic jam, some bulls decided to cross the road. Once the bulls crossed we found our next turn at a very small town called Villa Real, and Tamarindo was only 4 km away.
As we pulled into the greater Tamarindo area it did not appear to be much unlike the past 60 km we had just driven. Don’t get me wrong, it was a little more tourist friendly, but you still definitely knew that you were in Costa Rica. There were a lot of “Surf Shops” strewn down the road with attached surf schools for all of the tourists that had always wanted to say that they surfed in Costa Rica.
We found our hotel, Tamarindo Diria, and as we pulled into their entrance they immediately began to help us. They spoke very good english and unloaded our bags, showed us to the check-in counter, they were really helpful. We checked in and the bell-hop saw my surfbag and started to tell me about some of the good surf spots close by.
Our room was probably one of the nicest in the Tamarindo area, and looked right onto Pico Pequeno, which is a lava rock formed surfspot in Tamarindo Bay. Spracky took several pictures which can be found here.
We settled in and stood in the rain for a while to watch the waves come in. It started to sink in that we were in Costa Rica, a lush country filled with some of the friendlyist people we have ever met.
We had dinner at the hotel restaurant and planned our attack for the next day, which was to find Playa Avellana. Playa Avellana was a spot that I read about and a girl at Sunrise surf shop told us that we had to go surf there. We were able to pay the hotel $30 U.S. to get some wireless internet and began trying to find local weather radar and road maps to see what the best time and route would be for Playa Avellana.
The sun rises around 5:30 AM and sets almost exactly 12 hours later here, so we started decided to call it a day.
Until tomorrow.
Dax out-
The Search
Posted on October 10th, 2006 by Dax.
Categories: blog post.
I have this amazing knack for always wanting a shoe that is no longer in my size, or worse yet, I have a dream about a shoe and they don’t even exist.
I guess you can say that I am bit of a shoe whore, I don’t know what it is, but if I see a shoe that I like, whether it be a sneaker or dress shoe or running shoe, I have to have it, even though I might already have several decent pairs at home.
About 6 or 7 years ago I had a dream about a pair of adidas shoes. The bottom of the shoe was made out of rubber, no big whoop, but the top was made out of hemp, even the three stripes. So I started checking out the stores and couldn’t find them, I started searching the internet, couldn’t find them. I kept searching for around 6 months and could never find them. Spracky and I were at the mall in the spring of 2006 and boom, there were several different styles of the hemp adidas, almost the exact same shape and style of the shoe that I dreamt of so long ago.
Last winter I was looking for a mid-calf leather boot, something I could just throw on with jeans during the winter. I found a pair of Kenneth Cole boots called the High Road. I immediately ordered a pair from kennethcole.com in my size. A week later they tell me that they are out of my size in brown, of course the color that I was looking for. So I started to scour the net looking for other distributors, no luck, the closest I could find was a pair in black, which I didn’t want.
About a month ago Spracky and I were at the mall and I saw a pair of adidas norton hemp sneakers, I had never seen these before. These things were pretty cool looking, as far as sneakers go. The store only had them in a half-size smaller than I wear, I tried them on anyway, and they were just too tight. When we got home, we started checking all over the net thinking that these things must have just been sold out at the store…nope, they had been out for a while and adidas was discontinuing this particular color combination.
Now I am looking for a pair of no skool vans in two different tones of blue with a white van logo. Spracky and I were at one of our local surf shops and I saw them on the shelf. We were out buying stuff for our trip we are taking down to Costa Rica this fall. We had been out most of the day and I really didn’t feel like trying on shoes and what not. Then Spracky aka Jinxy, did what she has the amazing power of doing and jinxed me, she said “You better get them now, because you know they won’t have them when you get around to getting them.”. I didn’t feel like it, so we left. A week passes and I start wanting those shoes, so I went to the surf shop where we originally saw them, they didn’t have them in my size. I could start to feel the curse of the shoes again. I went to the next surf shop and they didn’t have them in my size but they would special order them for me. I was so stoked. On the drive home I got a call from the surf shop, that color combination was discontinued. ARGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!
This time I was not going to give up. I looked for those shoes all over the net, mostly surf shops. I found a store that was online out of California that had a limited supply left. I quickly purchased my size and was ecstatic. I waited a week, and hadn’t received my tracking number, so I contacted the store and they told me that I should have received an email explaining that they did not have those shoes in my size, and that they had already refunded my money to my account. ARGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I didn’t even bother to argue with them about their site having my size, among very few sizes listed, at the exact time when I attempted to purchase the shoes.
I could not beleive that this was happening yet once again.
This morning I began my seach for these #@$%#$%$@&* shoes. I actually went to one of those websites that sells nothing but shoes, anybodies shoes, as long as they are shoes. And guess what, they had a plethora of sizes for this shoe. But I was not going to be suckered again. On their website they stated that if I can add my size and color and style of shoe to my shopping cart then they have it in stock. So I attempted to add the exact shoes that I was looking for, and I was able to purchase them. I couldn’t beleive it, I actually have these shoes on there way here. And I couldn’t beleive that it was from one of those sites that always pop-up when you are searching for shoes online.
Now I know that you might think that I am a little neurotic about shoes, and maybe I am just a bit, but what it really comes down to is that I did not want to settle. There are too many times in our lives that we settle, and I really am tired of settling. So if I have to search the world to get a pair of shoes that I want, even if I don’t need them, I am not going to settle. As far as we know this is our only ride on this blue marble and I am going to make sure that I am going to make sure that I don’t have anymore regrets and I am definitely not going to settle.
Dax out-
Ying and Yang
Posted on September 18th, 2006 by Dax.
Categories: blog post.
What a perfect week of surf we had last week, September 10th-16th, 2006.
Spracky and I went surfing on Sunday, then I was able to go surfing Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
After the last decent swell that came through in August I started to realize that I needed a new board, something that could float me better. I have lost 17 pounds in the past three months, but the board that I was using, and still call my favorite, a 6′4″ Rawson, just wasn’t doing it for me, it’s not the boards fault, I just couldn’t get the speed up to catch the waves. I found a nice semi-new shape by Al Merrick, it’s called a Flyer and is a bit more forgiving in smaller surf.
With this new swell that came through, thanks to Hurricane Florence and Gordon, I was really excited about trying out my new board.
On Sunday, Spracky and I went to one of my favorite spots that most people don’t go to. It’s not super secluded, but I think most people overlook it’s potential with it’s three very distinct peaks…until Sunday. When Spracky and I got to the beach there were twenty surfers already in the line-up.
I paddled out to the line-up pretty easliy, so I started to worry that the new board might be a bit of a boat when trying to maneuver it on the waves. The first wave I paddled for I was able to catch quite easliy, but when I went to turn up the face of the waves I realized that the Flyer did not have the “flickability” as my Rawson, and was quickly dismounted by the wave. So I caught a couple more waves and started to become more and more familiar with the board.
By the end of the day I had two of my best rides in the past six years…that’s a long time. The rides themselves were almost identical. I caught a nice right, and immediately started going down the line, then there was a lump in the wave before I could make it to the next section, so I snapped the board back to the left and then quickly dropped in on the next section and snapped the board back to the right. At this point the wave shot up and I tucked in to get ready to get tubed, a very tight tube that wasn’t all that clean, but none the less, it was a tube. On the first of the two identical waves I caught, I immediately got slammed by the wave at this point. On the second of the waves, I started to get sucked up the face of the wave to try to get more speed to utilize when the wave was ready to shoot me out. But as I began to gain a good amount of speed the wave closed-out all the way down the line, and I was buried with it.
Needless to say, I was pretty stoked.
I went out on Monday, and didn’t have as good of rides, but I still had a great time. Tuesday was way to rough, so I rested. On Wednesday, the waves started to get really big…for Northeast Florida. The wind was still blowing onshore, so there was a considerable chop out there. But Thursday was by far the nicest day of surf for the week.
I went out at around 10:00 AM and the lines were perfect. You could see the sets rolling in. And, of course, there were plenty of other surfers in the line-up. I headed out to the south a little because the current was heading north. The face of the waves were easily four to seven foot, clean and mostly glassy. As I paddled out I would look down the face of a passing wave and I could see the beautiful tubes all the way down. I went for the first couple of waves, and really couldn’t get on unless I was really deep in the take-off. I eventually caught a couple of rides, but nothing spectacular that I can remember. I got out a little after noon, and decided to go get some food and rest and that I would head out later in the day.
Around 2:45 PM I got back to my spot and I was extremely happy that I went and got some rest. There were only a handful of people in the line-up and the waves had a very slight chop to them, but they looked the same height as the morning. I paddled out and noticed that the waves weren’t tubing like before, but occasionally an outside wave would show up and the face was easily eight feet. I arrived in the line-up where I wanted to be, my arms were really tired because I only took Tuesday off from surfing.
The first set came through and a couple of people caught the waves, I decided to rest just a bit. By the time the next set came through I was ready to ride. The first wave was to close to the shore, so I paddled out just a bit, and I let the second wave go by. I saw the third wave and it was a beast. I immediately started to paddle for it. Next thing I know I am looking down the face of this wave and it shelfs right up, so I stand up and started flying down the face of this thing. For a split second I looked straight at the wave, instead of looking down the line, and I all I could see was wave…nothing else, no sky. I quickly turned my attention back to the line of the wave. I kept flying up and down the face, slashing when I thought that I wouldn’t fly off. I was having a great time. Next thing I know, I feel this huge force knock me off the board from behind, and I found out that I had overstayed my welcome on this wave, and the wave had decided that it was time for me to get off. When I started to paddle back out, I saw just how far down the beach I was, and I realized that that had been one hell of a long wave.
The rest of the day was pretty much like the first wave of the day, almost every wave I tried for I caught, and I even got a couple of decent backsides in.
All in all it was a really good week, what a huge difference from just a couple of weeks ago, and I’m not refering to the surf.
Dax out-
Rough Seven Days
Posted on September 7th, 2006 by Dax.
Categories: blog post.
Let me just start by stating that I hope my seven days of bad luck are over.
This has been a rough seven days.
It all began on Tuesday night, August 29th, 2006. I receive a phone call right before 10:00 PM, and the caller ID states that it’s Scott. Scott is this guy that I have been friends with for about five or six years now. When I answer the phone it’s Scott’s girlfriend, Shellie. She says that she and Scott have been out drinking and she wanted to know if Spracky and I can come meet up with them so I can ride Scott’s motorcycle home for him, and Spracky can drive them home in our vehicle.
I am a little ticked, because I wanted to watch Miami Ink, which comes on at 10:00 PM. Now, that might seem like a selfish statement, but let me explain. Ever since I have known Scott, I do not recall him being sober for more than 24 hours, and I have never seen him without a pistol, except when he is in the pool. Scott appears to stay maintained by alcohol and feels secure with gunpowder.
But I’m thinking that he must be in a bad way, otherwise Shellie wouldn’t have called. So Spracky and I head to where they are located, it was only a couple of miles away, so I was figuring this would only take a few minutes, no big whoop.
We pull up, and Scott is half way leaning over his bike, and Shellie is waiving us down. Spracky and I hop out of our vehicle and Scott stands straight up, but his eyes are gone. At this time I am thinking that Scott wasn’t just drinking, but he was probably smoking dope and taking his “pain medication”. Scott has always had some sort of pain, some of it I beleive is legit, but for the most part I think it’s in his head.
Right when we walk up it becomes apparent that Scott was not okay with me coming to help out. I guess Shellie must have taken his keys and cell phone and decided to call me…not exactly the position I wanted to be in.
Scott and Shellie start arguing about him riding his bike home, and finally Shellie gives him the key and gets in out vehicle. Once the girls get in our vehicle I went to talk to Scott. I wanted to talk to him alone so he wouldn’t try to act all tough in front of his girlfriend, and I was hoping he would come to his senses.
I start asking Scott if he is really okay to ride his bike home, and he just keeps saying that he is. I figured that maybe I should put the image of a wreck in his head so he would stop just saying that he was fine and to make him think about what could happen.
A little background on how things are between Scott and I. Like I stated earlier, I have known Scott for about six years, and in that time Spracky and I have done a lot for him. We have had Scott over for Thanksgiving dinner; when he was out of work, we would invite him over everyday for dinner so he could eat; when he wanted to build a computer for his daughter that does not live with him, we spec’d it out and order all the parts and I was going to build it for her; when he figured he couldn’t afford the computer that he wanted to build for his daughter, I bought it from him; when his girlfriend (not his current girlfriend) was moving out of her apartment, I helped him move her stuff. But there are a couple of things that you can always count on with Scott, he will almost always imbelish his stories, and he will always have a beer and a handgun nearby. One of the first things Scott told me when I met him was that he used to be a Navy Seal. At first I beleived him, as time went by, not so much. I ended up contacting the U.S. Department of Navy and thanks to the Freedom of Information of 1974, I was able to verify that he was not. But this is Scott, and this is how he was, I never brought it up.
After a while I started to grow tired of his lies and his unreliability, and I think he sensed that because we stopped calling eachother. Every once and a while we would talk, until one day he came over stoned and was drinking. He started to argue with Spracky and I about everything, so I told hime to get out. After a period of time he would call if he needed something, like to borrow some tools or to see if I could walk his dogs. At first I was fine with this, but I started telling him that I couldn’t help him out, I was tired of it.
Back to the story.
So, I was talking to Scott, alone, and trying to get him to just get in our vehicle, mostly so he wouldn’t kill anybody else. Well, I guess his “pain medication” was really kicking in, he got off his bike and started to front up to me and started going off about me kicking him out of my place…this happened 4 months ago. At this point I’m not sure what my options are, I know he has a handgun in the small of his back, and I know he is not in his right mind. I just keep backing up from him, half hoping that he was so out of it that he would just fall on his face. Spracky and Shellie must have noticed something going on and they jumped out of the vehicle.
He starts squaring up to me, and I just keep looking for him to reach his right hand back to his handgun. Next thing I know, he hits me in the mouth with his left hand, which is not as bad as you would think. I immediately put him in a headlock with my right arm and spin him around 180 degrees to the ground. Spracky starts punching him in the kidneys, and I’m not sure what Shellie was doing at the time, but I am pretty sure she was in the pile. I start to realize that I can’t get to his gun due to the way that I am holding him, and I can’t punch him because that would just piss him off even more and then he would definitely go for his gun.
Once I feel him start to “lose steam”, I let him up and he starts going off about something, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Spracky and Shellie start getting in his face, and he pushes Spracky back. At that moment, I had a clear view of his face and I knew I could just punch the snot out of him, but I knew that I would have had to either nail him right in the eye or we all would have probably been dead…so I didn’t swing, I didn’t know without a doubt that I could have knocked him down. It was a very difficult decision…
I told Spracky to get in the vehicle, and we drove off and called the cops, hoping that a night in jail would help cool Scott off. Once we finally met up with the police and told them about our adventure we found out something about Jacksonville law. A little known fact about the law in Jacksonville, unless the police actually see you hitting somebody, you can’t be arrested on the spot. You have to go to the State Attorney’s office and file an official complaint and then they decide if they want to press charges.
The Police attempted to speak with Scott, who had already fled home, and he wouldn’t answer the door, so the police simply wrote up the report and left. Now, Spracky and I are freaked because we know that Scott has several, and I do mean several, guns. We finally decide that he has probably passed out for the evening and we went home, not that I got much sleep.
The next day, Spracky went to work and I recooped from the previous evening’s festivities. I figured Scott was probably realizing what a jackass he had been the previous night, so I called his voicemail and let him know that he needed to return a socket and socket wrench of mine, and he could leave it at my doorstep so he wouldn’t have to speak to me. I picked Spracky up from work and we chilled at home. Right before I went to bed, I opened the front door expecting the tools that Scott had borrowed to be there, but no such luck. But, the ever immature Scott did scratch the word “FAG” on my front door.
The moral to this story is…if you have a friend that you feel you can help, I mean you really feel like this person just needs some guidance…don’t bother staking too much trust in them, because it will bite you in the end…or just punch you.
As a side note, my lip healed up in like 4 days.
Sorry this post was so long, I just wanted to get the official word out there in the blog-o-sphere. There was another incident that made this a “Rough Seven Days”, but I will post that later.
Dax out-