Make Your Own Surf Racks

Father's Day weekend, I was inspired to get some work done in the garage, and decided to build some surf racks for my boards. My office at work was beginning to resemble a small surf shop, so the timing was right. I made my way to Home Depot with the following list of stuff to get:

• (3) 10 ft. schedule 40 PVC pipes (1").
• (12) 45 degree elbows which fit 1" schedule 40 PVC.
• (3) 6 ft. foam pipe insulation to fit over the 1" PVC.
• (1) can of PVC glue (already had some).
• (24) 3" screws.

Here is what I did. Each 10" PVC pipe is cut into (4) 12" and (4) 18" pieces. Glue one 12" and one 18" segment together, using the 45 elbow. Cut the foam pipe insulator into 4 pieces, roughly 18" long, sliding one over each 18" PVC segment.

Now the tough part [unless you have a stud finder (and don't say "beep, beep, beep... it is pointing to me!")] - mount each support to the wall along a vertical stud using two 3" screws. I predrilled two holes in the PVS supports: 1 through the joint, and the other one approximately 8 inches down from the joint on the 12" segment of PVC.

Below are two pictures of my completed racks (click the pictures for a larger version). Note that the outer supports are just a hair over 6 ft. apart, so I put a middle support in for the top two supports. They seem pretty damn sturdy, and the angle keeps the boards out of the way more than if 90 degree elbows were used.

Lunch Break Surf Report

Man, is parking getting to be a pain down at the local spot. Imagine this: great weather brings more people to the beach!

There were some fun waves out there today, mostly in the waist high range. Consistency wasn't too great, and the winds were fairly mild. Water temperature is around 65, and I was comfortable trunking it with my rash guard.

Wildlife sighting for the afternoon: a chrysaora colorata jellyfish.

Afternoon Surf Report

Today, your fervent surf journalist is repoting from the Oceanside Jetty. I went out at around 3:00 and stayed for about an hour and a half. The waves were much better there, with better consistency and size than the last few days at D street. Wave height was waist to chest high, with a few stand out sets head high. A beautiful late afternoon...

AM Surf Report

Last night I set the alarm for 4:25 AM, noting that I had not had a nice AM surf session since the previous week. I dragged myself out of bed when the alarm went off, and was in the water by 5:15. I was the first one out there, and in fact no one else showed up until around 6:00. Sort of wierd being there with no one else around, especially contrasted with the lunch break surf crowds.

I think the main reason it was so deserted was due to the fact that the surf was micro-surf. The water was nice and calm, but the swell was just not there. This is the smallest I've seen it in quite some time. Oh well, it's still good to get out there and find some time for yourself.

Lunch Break Surf Report

I've been pretty busy as of late, and so haven't been as diligent with the surf reports. However, I have been surfing three times over the last 4 days, and that's a good thing.

The last two lunch breaks have seen the return of the sun to our coast, and with it, hordes of kids on summer break. There are little grommets splashing about, having a good time. There also seems to be some sort of a surf camp at our regular spot, so we usually end up hiking a bit further south to avoid potential collisions.

The weather has been very nice these last two days, and I think I'll be abondoning the spring suit for trunks and a rash guard tomorrow. Now if only we had some decent waves to go along with the weather...

Bloodbowl League Night #4

The monthly get together of our Bloodbowl league occured last Friday the 20th. All of the usual suspects were there, and we also celebrated Grant's birthday, which was cool (and the cake was tasty too).

I was slated to face Adam's orc team, complete with a big bruiser troll. My lightly armored wood elves were a bit worried about the bruisers, and our initial strategy was to reduce contact with the enemy as much as possible. Score quick, score often, and just try to slow down the already lumbering orcs.

My team ("Mother Nature's Sons" - [team roster]) actually had the potential to be full strength, which hasn't happened since the first game of the season. Unfortunately, a niggling injury bit one of my linemen, and thus he was forced to sit out this competition. I decided to save my apothecary for use later in the game in case some dreadful injury occurred during the coarse of the match.

I won the coin toss, elected to receive the ball, and was off to the races. Scoring a touchdown on my first drive, I lead through the remainder of the game, winning with a final score of 3 to 1. Some notable highlights in the match:

• My wardancer attempting to leap, and failing. He falls down, fails his armor roll, and is seriously injured. Ouch! Then I remember that I have an apothecary, who manages to miraculosuly cure the wardancer of his ills, and he remains on the field, good as new!
• My wardancer and two other linemen team up to knock the troll out of the game for what seemed to be almost an entire half. Great teamwork by the faeries to take down Goliath!
• Adam's touchdown was quite a site. Some of his orcs had broken away from the line of scrimmage, and managed to make their way down the field. Adam decides to try and go for it, knowing that if he doesn't, my elves will converge on his ball carrier to try and take the ball away from him. He goes for it, and falls down. Boom! My lineman is closest to the ball, and picks it up and tries to pass it out of the orc infested region, but he FUMBLES the pass! Arg! Adam's orc which fell down then hops up, picks up the ball, dodges out of two tackle zones, and goes for it twice. He makes both rolls, scampering into the end zone for his touchdown. Quite a nice show of agility by the orcs.

My next match is against Gary's undead bruiser team. Unfortunately, one of my linemen suffered a fractured arm, which means he will have to sit out the next game, plus he now has a niggling injury. On the other hand, I won 100k gp, so I'll be able to afford another lineman to replace him.

Lunch Break Surf Report

I'l make this one fairly quick! A bit more wind today compared to Monday, but the NW swell is still hitting the local beaches fairly well. The water temperature seems to have dropped about a degree, which may be due to the lack of sunshine the last two days. All in all, a decent day!

PyBabble v0.1 Released

A few people have requested the source code for the chat server I mentioned about a week ago, so I bit the bullet and cleaned up the code a bit, wrote a README file for it, and here it is.

In the not too distant future, I plan on adding several features to it, such as multiple rooms, user lists, etc. Any comments and/or suggestions are always welcome! Furthermore, my chat server on port 2500 of www.shermanloan.com is still up.

Lunch Break Surf Report

With the swell coming in from the NW, I wasn't expecting much as I headed down to my local surf spot on my lunch. However, the surf was very fun today, with wave heights in the waist to chest high range. The wind was mild, which made conditions failry nice. I had many decent rights on the day, and look forward to similar conditions as the week goes by.

Lunch Break Surf Report

The wind kicked back up today, and the swell died down even more. It was one of those days, where I think I may have spent more time underwater than standing on my board. If the swell doesn't pick up for tomorrow, I'll probably give my arms and back a break so they'll be ready next week.

AM and Lunch Break Surf Reports

Woo-hoo, are my arms tired. I was in the water by 5:30 am this morning, and the conditions were decent, if inconsistent. There wasn't too much wind, but the swell seems to have backed off a bit from yesterday.

At lunch, it was low tide and there were many fun waves to be found. The sun was out, which brought a few more people to the beach than normal. Such is the penalty for nice weather. :>

Lunch Break Surf Report

Today saw the return of some decent weather, with the winds being mild and the sun making a cameo appearance for the first time in over a week. Not only that, but the SW swell was hitting North County very nicely.

The tide wase extremely low at lunch, so there were many close outs at the beach breaks, with some great conditions at the outer reef breaks to the South. I'm going to try for a dawn patrol session tomorrow and hope the conditions hold out!

Lunch Break Surf Report

Strong winds from the South greeted our return to the surf today, and made us reconsider our efforts. There was increased swell in the water compared to the end of last week, but the winds were churning up the water quite a bit, and the temperature seems to have dropped a bit over the last few days. We cut our session short today, and will hope for better conditions in the very near future.

Python Chat Server Beta

Well, I have finished the beta version of the chat program I mentioned yesterday. If you would like to give it a whirl, either use telnet or a MUD client and connect to www.shermanloan.com on port 2500. It is fairly rough around the edges, and sports a modest feature set:

• Allows the user to enter a login name upon connection.
• One wonderful room for that 'cozy' conversational feel.
• It works. Most of the time.

I will be adding some more features to the chat server in the very near future, such as multiple chat rooms and private messages. Eventually, I will be expanding this into some sort of MUD.

If anyone is interested in the code to the server, drop me an email and I'll be happy to put it up for your downloading pleasure.

Playing Around in Python

Python is a programming language which is interpreted, object-oriented and interactive. It is considered a high level language, most often compared to Perl, Tcl and Java. There are many excellent introductions to Python (both free and non-free), but I would recommend How to Think Like a Computer Scientist - Learning with Python as a great starting place. The Python for Beginners area of python.org contains many other on-line tutorials to sink your teeth into, if you so desire.

When learning a new language, I find it helpful to try and target a project and then dive into the language, trying to implement the project in the new language. Seeing as how python has a vast library of routines, I have decided to target a project involving non-trivial networking(a first for me). The first stage of the project will be a chat server, which will allow numerous connections from client machines (via telnet) and that will take the text sent by each client to the server and echo it to all connected clients (think IRC with one room, I guess).

In order to implement the chat server, I am using the asyncore and asynchat modules of the Python 2.2.3 library. Both of these modules originated in the Medusa project, which "is an architecture for building long-running, high-performance network servers in Python."

I should have the chat server completed in the next few days, and when I do, I'll post the information (and source code) here for all to browse.

Hump Day Lunch Break Surf Report

The wind has swung around a bit and was coming from the NW this afternoon, matching the swell direction. The water was fairly choppy, but I still managed to catch a decent right or two on some wasit high waves. I'm getting REAL sick of this gray weather, though.

AM Surf Report

As expected, the swell has backed down a bit, and that pesky S to SW wind that was here yesterday during my lunch session was still blowing fairly good in the AM. Usually, there isn't much wind in the AM, so this was a bit of a surprise - glad I brought the fullsuit.

The wave size was decent, maybe waist high+ with a few bigger sets rolling through. Most of my rides were quick rights or lefts, with close-outs being the norm. Not much in the way of a decent ride today.

Lunch Break Surf Report

The surf today was a bit choppy but still had some nice volume and a decent NW swell pushing in waves from chest to head high. It looked a lot nicer this morning, but I couldn't roll myself out of bed to make the AM session - I'll shoot for tomorrow instead.

Over the weekend, I also picked up a Rip Curl Ultimate Elasto spring suit from Trestle's Surf Outlet up in San Clemente. I tried it out today for the first time, and it is extremely flexible and much more comfortable than my old O'Neill spring suit from the late Jurassic period. A definite thumbs up!

Finally, for those of you who surf in North County, be sure to check out the North County Surf Report. By a N.C. surfer, for N.C. surfers.