"I was built for recreation."

So I got out and surfed for the first time in nearly two months last weekend. It's funny, really, how little I've surfed recently. When I moved to Santa Cruz three years ago I would go out in any conditions - it didn't matter how cold or dirty the water was, how cold the air was, or how crappy the surf was. I was just stoked to be out in it. So stoked that a couple of times, strangers would comment on the smile on my face as I was paddling out, and people I knew would give me shit for being so smiley in the lineup. My sessions would last up to three or four hours, and I would get out of the water *stoked*, no regrets. Get on my bike and ride, soaking wet in a wetsuit, the mile-and-half back to my apartment. That's changed in the last few months, and it kinda makes me sad. Now, instead of living a mile-and-a-half from the ocean, I live 109 steps from the ocean, and I've gotten so picky about conditions - I can make a handful of excuses about why I shouldn't go out. "There's too many people out." "The tide isn't working." "It's too windy." "The water's too dirty." I know that I hit a plateau a while back, because for a few months it felt like every wave was the same (impossible!) and that I was doing the same thing on every wave. So I had a shorter board custom-made for me to mix things up. And that's what I took out this past weekend. It's a 7'6" fish - hardly a shortboard - but I still call it that because it rides so much differently than the boards that I normally ride (a 9'6" single-fin pintail, and a 9'11" single-fin noserider). I figured I was going to suffer no matter what I was on, since I hadn't surfed in nearly two months, so why not suffer on something that I want to get better on? I paddled out in 50 degree water, a 4/3 wetsuit with booties, did a good job of keeping my head dry for the first 20 minutes or so, and caught eight waves during my 45 minute session. And I was bored about 30 minutes into it. Don't know what's up with that. Could it be that I'm over surfing?? On Sunday afternoon, Adria and I were walking along East Cliff and we ran into Chris. He had just harvested some broccoli from his community garden plot. He shared a bit of his harvest with me. I'm going to juice it tomorrow morning. Yumm.

After the East Cliff stroll, we made our way to the West Side. Along the way, Adria and I were talking about her previous jobs. I commented that I bet she was really, really good at this one job she had before her current job and her response was immediate and confident: "I was built for recreation." I loved that answer.

We were walking along West Cliff and we looked down to the beach and saw this cool piece of temporary art. It was gone a few hours later when the tide came in.

A bit further down West Cliff, there was a BMX bike lying on the pavement and I jokingly turned to Adria and said, "I'll give you fifty bucks if you jump on that bike and ride off on it." Without hesitating, she pulled away from me, ran to the bike, picked it up, hollered to the guys that it belonged to "hey is this your bike can I ride it?" When she came back to me, she didn't ask for the fifty bucks. "Put it towards our round-the-world bike trip", she said. Yeah, more on that later...

halfway between Oregon and Mexico

Every January, there's a gathering of folks involved with organic produce - it's called the Ecological Farming Conference (Eco-Farms) and it's held in Pacific Grove at the beautiful Asilomar conference grounds. This event is an un-official milestone for me every year - it marks the yearly anniversary of my move to Santa Cruz from Philadelphia.

This year I decided to ride my bike to the conference. The night before the ride I was planning my route based off of a bicycle touring book. Adria, having ridden this section a few times, was giving me some pointers on navigating.

A: "Do you know how to get to La Selva beach?"

C: blank stare followed by something that probably ended with "...not really."

A: "Maybe I should take the day off and ride with you."

I think she was concerned because earlier in the evening we talked about our navigating skills. I'm not sure how it came up, but I told her three things about my nav skills:

1. I am good with maps.
2. I have to be charged with navigating - it doesn't come naturally.

3. I get turned around in big cities (esp. when you enter a big building on Street A and exit on Street B. Forget it.)

And as it turns out, she balances me out on the last two. And I'm sure she's good with maps, too. Tangent. No worries, though, because for this ride I had everything covered.

Map?

Check.

Charged with navigating?

Check.

Absence of big buildings?

Check.

No worries.

Adria didn't play hookie the next day to ride with me, and it rained all. night. long. Slept with window open to enjoy the sound, but started losing sleep around 3am when I realized that it would be a wet ride. Woke up before dawn, packed my bags (*), ate oatmeal while watching news about Obama's first couple of days in office. Waiting for sunrise.

The sun did rise; the rain did not stop.

Wait another hour.

Until it let up to that kinda rain that

when you're driving a car

forces you to work your windshield wipers manually.

Heavier than a mist,

lighter than a shower.

Here is my route:

Total distance was 56 miles; total time moving was just under 3 1/2 hours.

On my route I saw an old lady smoking pot in a minivan, mushroom houses, these guys harvesting artichokesprepped berry fields, cover-cropped fields, a park ranger digging a hole in the rain at Sunset beach, a young couple snuggling in a truck watching the surf, and lots of fruit stands.

About three miles into the ride, I realized I had a problem. My map (I photocopied three pages from that bike touring book) was getting wet. It was folded in neat quarters and stashed in my back jersey pocket, which turned out to be a great place to catch all the precip and back sweat. Everytime I stopped to check my directions little bits of the map flaked away. And the ink was starting to bleed. There's an article posted on the bulletin board above the urinal at work, and it's about survival. Not survival like you're stuck in the Everglades and how do you stay alive, but attributes of survival. One of the attributes that gets people in trouble is when they spend time "denying denial." I'll admit I spent some time there for a few miles:

"It will stop raining soon."

"The route will become clear and I won't need the map anyway."

"There will be signs on the roads telling me which way to go."

Heavier rain made me realize I had to find the nearest market and try to bum a plastic baggie to stash the map. But I was in the middle of prime ag and beach land. No corner markets. Then I remembered that I had a baggie in my panniers, holding my chain tool and extra chain links. Problem solved.

The roads were wet and muddy.

This is me at the halfway point between Oregon and Mexico, crossing the Pajaro River. That's all farmland behind me.

It was easy riding all the way to Monterey. It's all fast, empty bike path that parallels Hwy 1.

When I got to Monterey I realized I had another problem - I didn't have the last page of directions. I left them on the copier at work. So I ducked into this bike shop and got one of those huge, glossy, cartoon-style tourist maps that showed the way.

I made it to the Asilomar grounds, checked into my cabin, didn't look in all of the drawers like I did in Vegas, showered up, and hopped back on my bike to get across the grounds. I wanted to catch this session with a panel of local celebrity chefs talking about sustainability in the food business.

Turns out there's not a lot of bike racks on the grounds, so I improvised. Hippie bike rack:

I made it to the session a bit late (missed hearing the owner of White Dog Cafe, a great Philly restaurant, speak), but did catch Dan Barber (http://www.starchefs.com/chefs/DBarber/html/bio.shtml) of Blue Hill Farm. He told a great story about "the best culinary experience of his lifetime" when he was in Spain. He met a foie gras producer who cultivates foie gras sustainably (as sustainably as possible, considering the goose gives up his life), and without using the cruel, abusive practice of gavage.

(*) Stuff I Carried On My Bike

1. faded blue jeans, 1 pair

2. slaps, 1 pair

3. shirt, 2 (with pearl snaps)

4. underwear, 0 (forgot to pack it)

5. laptop, 1

6. rain pants, 1 pair

7. rain jacket, 1

8. shoe covers, 1 pair

9. Icebreaker top, 1

10. toiletries bag, 1

11. Sigg water bottle, quart, 1

12. electrolyte drink, quart, 2

Sunday morning surf check

Sunday, January 18.
7:43 am.
38th and East Cliff.
The much-anticipated swell ("it's coming all the way from Japan!", "long periods", "Maverick's contest is ON!") was over-rated. It may have come all the way from Japan, I don't know how long the periods were, and Maverick's contest was NOT on. It did deliver a little punch which was nice, and the weather was ridiculous this weekend (me to a stranger on East Cliff: "It's January, right?" Him: "Yeah, that's why we pay ridiculous prices to live here."). I haven't surfed in over a month. The swell should last about a week, so I'm going to let people get their fill for a few more days and get tuckered out, then I'll surf and hopefully avoid the crowds. Yeah, right.

the best job ever

I was washing my bike after my Saturday ride and this girl came out on the street, set up a small tripod with a digital camera and started filming herself skateboarding up and down the driveway. You know the drill - run over, crouch down, set the timer, hit the button, run back into the picture frame, get setup, do your thing, stop, run back over to the camera, and see what you end up with. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Well, at least I know the drill because I do that all the time - last time I did the same kind of thing on a solo mtb ride. I wanted to film myself climbing a technical section and I found myself doing exactly what she was doing. Here's a bad picture of her skating down the driveway:After a few minutes, I hollered to her, "Hey, if you need some help let me know."

She took me up on the offer and we started talking about why she was doing this. Turns out she was making a 60 second video to submit to some television show called "The Best Job Ever" where the winner gets to live on some island resort for six months, get paid $100,000 dollars and basically do nothing. Anyway, I told her that she should use the ocean as her background instead of the dumpster and parked cars. So we went to the end of the driveway and filmed her skating along East Cliff. Her name is Megan and she said if she wins that I can come hang out at the resort and do nothing.

Then I talked to Adria who really has the best job ever. She was at a training exercise all day - eating MREs, breaching stuff, sawing holes in rooftops with bombs going off in the distance. The next day we were at her house, in her garage, and I asked her "Is that a firehose on the shelf?" She just looked at me and said, "Yeah, so I can protect my home when there's a wildfire."

green things in my world this week

My illegal, South American plant (I don't know the variety, why it's illegal, or if it's really from South America - but that's what the guy who gave it to me as a baby told me) now has a friend!

A beautiful bonsai ficus!!

Thanks, Adria!!

These flowers are falling from the bushes all over the grounds where I live:

On Sunday I had brunch with my friend Olive who works in the organic foods industry, representing growers from New Zealand and Chile. She walked into The Buttery with a goodie-bag full of samples for me: avocadoes, blueberries, and mangoes. And a lemon from her tree. And then I got more Meyer lemons from Adria - big, fat, juicy ones.

Wheatgrass rules. I go through one pound of cut grass in about 10 days. Tastes like lawn clippings, and cleans your blood. My latest concoction is 3 oz. of wheatgrass, 1 TB of spirulina, a banana, some mixed berries, and maple syrup. Good stuff if you can find the balance between the sweetness of the syrup and the earthiness of the greens.

One of my snacks yesterday - an avocado that Olive gave me. This is my all-time favorite food. And one of my favorite ways to enjoy it is to remove the pit, fill the crater with EVOO, a dash of salt and pepper. 420 calories of goodness. I know it's 420 calories because I am on a quest to gain 10# back that I lost last month (took a month off from the gym and have been riding bikes a lot a lot). So yesterday, out of curiosity, I counted my calories - I consumed over 7,000 calories. Maybe I'll write about that next.

Here's the most recent juice I'm into. It's called Green Lemonade. It's 1 head of romaine lettuce, 5 pieces of kale, 2 apples, as much ginger as you can handle (I use about half a pinky-finger worth), and a lemon (preferably a fat, juicy Meyer from someone's tree).

throw it on the ground

I had some downtime at work today so I cleaned my office. The first thing I tackled was the desk drawers. Both top drawers were filled with confetti from the shredder (a practical joke courtesy of my co-workers when I was OOO last week). When I got to the back and bottom of the drawers I found two little nuggets that made me smile. One was a quote from an old-school raw foods guy:

"To be alive, you've got to eat life. Throw it on the ground. If it grows, it's first-class food, if it doesn't grow, it's not. You can't "grow" Ritz crackers, potato chips or French fries, but a grain of 3000-year-old red wheat found in Tutankhamen's tomb sprouted when planted..."

The other was something I had written on a notecard a long time ago:

"A parsnip in the ground is a marvel of living chemistry making sugars and flavors from earth, air, and water. And if we do eat meat it is the life, the bounce, the swish of a great alert being with keen ears and lovely eyes, with foursquare feet, and a huge beating heart that we eat, let us not deceive ourselves."

"We need to un-f*ck ourselves from this situation." - Rob

Went on an epic mtb ride on Saturday with six guys, organized by Jason. We met in Soquel at 9am; didn't get back until 4pm. Over the seven hours, we rode 46 miles and spent 44% of our total ride time climbing 7,609 feet. That's a lot of climbing, but as Rich put it towards the end "...that's the price of admission..." for the super-challenging single track that we rode.

At the top of Sand Point Overlook in Nisene Marks Forest, early in the ride. (Kevin, Rob, Rich, Norman, Jason, Chris, me).

Our fearless organizer, Jason, descending in Demonstration Forest:

There were so many one-liners thrown out that I couldn't remember them all. Here's what I do remember:

"I like my gears." - Jason to me, on an early climb, when we were energized and sharp enough to smack-talk.

"I like pain." - Jason, on the side of the trail with double-quad cramps.

"See if you can get some soup, too." - Jason to Rob when Rob was going to try to bum some water from a big group of downhill guys in the Demo parking lot. They were drinking beer and eating soup.

"If you're not careful, Rob, they'll put you in the soup." - Chris to Rob.

"You're an (f-word) beast for riding that bike on this ride." - Rich to me when I told him the gear ratio on my SS.

"Thanks for not saying that before the ride." -me, in response to Rich's comment.

"Write down everything you remember, 'cause it's a VisionQuest from here on out." - Chris, 38 miles into it, over his shoulder to me. Everyone was suffering at this point, except Kevin.

"You gonna try to climb it, Clay?" - Rich to me, 42 miles into in, before another climb.

"I'm dizzy." - Kevin, after Land of Medicine Buddha fall.

Jason (left) showing off his 100% recycled tube to Rob. Half the weight, twice the price.

Chris, lauching from one of the many jumps in Demo:
Here's our route. We started in the lower left where the red text is.
And here's the profile of the ride:

About halfway through the ride, Jason started talking about burritos and beer. Then we all ran out of energy bars and Goo. About 3/4 of the way through the ride, most of us had run out of water and some of us were making bad decisions on some challenging single-track. So that's when we called it, and decided to head home. We scraped Jason off the Medicine Buddha bridge, found the nearest taqueria, ate, and parted ways.