Lunch Break Surf Report - Stoked!

The surf today was as fun as it has been for a while, with a few large sets (head-high) rolling through with nice rights and even longer lefts making their way to D Street. Thanks much to Bob, for cajoling me and getting me out there!

Yesterday was pretty much crappy, for both the AM and lunch break sessions, hence my hesitance to paddle out today. Let's hope this SW swell holds up through tomorrow!

Pictures of My Board

Sunday, after my son's first birthday party, I took some time and cleaned off the wax accumulated on my board over the last 6 months, and decided to snap a few pictures of it while it was clean and looking good. Click on any of the thumnails below for a larger version of the same image.

This is my first "shortboard" and measures 7'6" x 20 7/8" x 3". It was shaped for me by the father of one of my daughter's friends, and I've been very happy with it so far. The only downside to it is that it is extremely difficult to duck-dive, due to its thickness.

Memorial Day Surf Report

A long four day weekend has come to a close, and even though I wasn't feeling 100%, I made it out to Tamarack on Memorial Day to enjoy a bit of early AM surf. I haven't surfed Tamarack since the Jan. 4th winter swell, so it took me a few waves to get the feel back for this location. I had several good lefts and rights, and was glad I made the trip. Looking forward to some potential swell in the week to come!

War of the Ring Sneak Peek No. 2

The response to the previous War of the Ring Sneak Peek was so well received that we have one more treat for you: a pre-proof publication version of the Saruman character card. Enjoy!

War of the Ring Sneak Peek

A few folks on ConsimWorld have expressed an interest in seeing what the next version of War of the Ring (a Richard H. Berg game design) will have in store for them. Since we are in the early stages of playtesting the campaign game, and since the game has yet to be formally blessed, there isn't a whole lot I can reveal other than a few snap shots of the homemade map, counters and cards.

As an added bonus, Richard has provided a section of the pre-proof publication version of the map, which is simply gorgeous. Click on the thumbnails below to see larger versions of each picture.

A Hard Drive in Your Watch

Now this is pretty sweet. With up to 128MB of memory, it would make a fairly respectable personal information manager with space left over for important documents, source code, and the odd mp3.

IBM Deskstar Drives Suck Golfballs Through Garden Hoses

As alluded to in the Lunch Break Surf Report for today, yesterday afternoon was a bit hectic for me on the computer front. It seems as if yet another P.O.S. IBM Deskstar hard drive decided life was too painful to continue, and began its death spiral.

These drives have a notorious reputation, which I unfortunately only discovered after buying around 10 for the office. The one that decided to freak out yesterday was actually a RMA replacement drive sent to me by IBM after a previous drive kicked the bucket.

All was not lost in the near catastrophe, and I've spent a majority of my day today recreating my Debian Linux workstation. If all goes well, I should be up to full steam again sometime tomorrow.

Lunch Break Surf Report

I didn't have a chance to post yesterday due to a crisis at work, but I did manage to get out in the surf both yesterday and today. The good news is that spring-suit temperatures are here! Woo-hoo! Now I can take my Rip Curl full suit in for repairs so it will be ready for next winter.

As for the waves, they've been small (chest high max) but fun. Lots of decent lefts and the occasional right at D Street. Get out there!

Monday Surf Report

I got up early today for a dawn patrol session at D street, and it was very nice out. The water was still, like a giant pool of quicksilver pitching me towards the shore with each wave I caught. There were several pods of dolphins out playing around, one of which launched itself into the air for what seemed to be a friendly "Good morning". Had he landed on me, I would instead have to assume his intentions were hostile...

Lunch saw more wind and more people at the break. It wasn't nearly as clean nor well formed as it was this morning. On the other hand, the water is getting warmer - I think it is time to break out the spring suit!

Bloodbowl League Night #3

Friday night saw my wood elf team ("Mother Nature's Sons" - [team roster]) go up against Rob's chaos team. I was short one player due to the foul and resulting KIA from the last match, and Rob's team is definately full of bruisers, so I was a bit worried.

I think that this match may have been the most exciting I've played in several games, thanks to a near-perfect second quarter drive by Rob's team which was very nicely executed. Furthermore, we kept the game very amiable by not committing any fouls.

I ended up winning the close match with a 3-2 score, managed to not lose/injure any of my players, inflicted my first team casualty against an opponent, and earned enough winnings to replace my wardancer for the next match. A very good night, indeed.

Star Trek Humor

A yes, Star Trek humor.. you just can't get enough of it. First up is About a Million Reasons Why Kirk was Better than that Bald Toad-Boy Picard. My favorite quote would have to be:

Next, the folks at Happy Fun Pundit bring us the Top 10 Things I Hate About Star Trek.

Lunch Break Surf Report

The work week finished off with some decent sized waves and great weather. I'd estimate that the water temperature has risen 5 degrees (F) over the last three weeks, to a relatively balmy 61. I'm bringing the board home with me tonight as I hope to hit Tamarack on Saturday. I haven't gone back to Tamarack since the epic winter swell showed up around January 4th of this year.

Comment System Now Available

You may have noticed a new "Comments (x)" hyperlink at the bottom of each story. I have successfully installed pyblosxom's comment plugin (contributed by Ted Leung) so that users can comment on the articles. Dive on in and have a blast!

Fly Guy

It is hard to descibe Fly Guy, othern than in the following very general terms. It is a Flash "game" which is more exploratory in nature than competitive. Check it out when you have a little bit of free time, and want to relax a bit. Dig that music, too!

Lunch Break Surf Report

Well, the swell has pretty much disappeared that we all enjoyed on Monday. The weather is improving, which means more people down at the beach - a mixed blessing to be sure. It will be nice to ditch the full wetsuit and head out in board shorts come summer time! Pray for swell...

How do YOU Spell Unemployable?

Oh boy! Another neat way for people too bored with existence to mutilate themselves into their own impersonations of the aliens in V. I don't know which is worse: the fact that this is something the subject wanted to do, or that his parents gave him the $500 to do it. *choke*

Lunch Break Surf Report - Best. Surf. Evar.

Ok, maybe not EVER, but the best surf seen in the last few months. The SW swell hit D street at it's sweet spot, and the waves were breaking and peeling every minute or so. Lots of lefts and a few rights were about, and the wave size was around chest high, with the occasional bigger set rolling through.

It simply doesn't get much better than this, so go on out and get some while it's here!

Exclusive! Kim Il Jong's Secret blog

I stumbled upon reclusive North Korean leader Kim Il Jong's secret blog. This explains soooo many things that I've been wondering about.

Lunch Break Surf Report

Having skipped the last two days due to rain and inclement weather here in SoCal, we decided to try our luck today even though it seemed a bit breezy at the office. Making our way down to D Street, we discover that it is about 3 times as windy at the beach as it was at the office. As Bart would say, "Aye caramba!"

I paddled my arse off and had very little to show for it. When will this damned wind die down?

More on Eclipse

I spent some time working in the Eclipse environment today, checking out it's features and performance. So far, I am very pleased with it. IBM has something very nice here, so check it out if Java or C is your thing.

Here is a picture of the Eclipse IDE with the RallyCar I am toying with and learning Java at the same time. Click on the thumbnail image for a larger version.