I've been meaning to keep track of my forays into surfing and baking, and hence a blog was born. Why put them in the same blog, you might ask. I have no idea. Actually, if I put them in two separate blogs, I would almost certainly forget/be too lazy to update one or the other. So here goes!
A bit of background on each:
Baking: I've been baking with Mom for as long as I can remember, but over the past year or so I've started to take it more seriously. I don't just want to bake. I want to make absurdly delightful and beautiful creations that will leave people weeping for joy. Not really. But sorta. I do want to learn to be bakingly consistent, and to make a real presentation out of the things I've made. So, to that end, I (with generous gifts from my parents) have started to get the tools of the trade. I'm in love with my KitchenAid stand mixer. I have piping bags and tips, cooling racks, books, etc etc. The mission from here on out is to try to make at least one delicious thing a week and see what my friends think. They're ok with the idea :)
In a post to come soon, I'll put up pics of some of the things I've made over the past year. I tend to only record the good stuff, but in the interests of truthfulness, I'll start recording everything.
Surfing: I started surfing this past July (2011) with my guys, Bryon, Lee, and Damon (often referred to as the math guys when all present). We rented wetsuits and foam boards one day, and just went out and failed a bunch. But we had so much fun failing! And essentially, we all decided off that one experience that we loved it enough to start investing. We bought wetsuits (I bought two :-/ Totally glad I did though cause then I didn't have to invest a second time when winter waters came around). We bought boards. My first board is a lovely 8'0" Mission Surfboards pintail funboard type thing (made in Pacific, CA). I have issues paddling it, cause it's wider than my shoulders by a fair bit, and I most definitely can't duckdive it, which makes me sad. I can, however, turtle roll it sometimes, which is hilarious. Just ask anyone who has ever seen me attempt this.
If I ever feel like I have lots of time on my hands (or if I have a major project due and obviously conclude that that is the time to write this down), I will recount stories of the early days on Testicles (pronounced test-ih-klees, as this is what Bryon named my board). For now, however, I will tell you that I am borrowing Lee's 7'2" funboard, the Queen of Ween, while I try to move down toward a shortboard. I'm getting better at everything, but I'm still way too timid, and after taking a month off to go back east, I'm really out of surfing shape. Goals are to just go balls to the wall and make it happen. I want to be shredding by the end of the year.
I'm not sure how best to blog the surfing, but for starters, I'll probably just talk about what I'm riding, how the waves looked, what kind of waves I caught, how I'm improving. I don't know. Hopefully once I get a little better I can also keep track of conditions so that I can learn to read the ocean a bit better. Also (and I'm slight ashamed to admit this, but not really), there will be tons of info in posts about the wildlife I see out there. I'm in love with dolphins, and will report with great excitement whatever I can about them and other sealife. Just a warning.
Ok, I think that should do it for an intro. Let's see how well I can avoid Wipeouts and Burns :)
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