Station Wagons are for Squares

Then I'll never be a hepcat since I have two vehicles of the mommy car/grocery-getter/surf mobile persuasion. When I was at the beach today, one of the crew said I was single-handedly keeping Kadafi in power by driving a car that requires so much of Libya's oil. (You know, of course, he was referring to Big Red.)

That missing hubcap? I'm glad you asked. When I got the car, it had some aftermarket hubcaps on the wheels, but three of the original hubcaps were in the place where the third row of seats had been. I eventually located a fourth original hubcap on eBay. About a month later, I put all four of those OG hubcaps on the car. Still, I'd always wondered why the original owner only had three of those hubcaps. Where did the fourth one run off to? I soon found out. As Soul Brother #2 and I drove up a hilly street close to our house one day, I heard the sound of something metallic rolling down the street. I looked in the sideview mirror. There was my hubcap, disappearing into the distance. I parked the car, told the little man not to get anywhere near the steering wheel (because old Fords have a tendency to shift themselves into reverse when parked on a hill and a child accidentally breathing on the shifter was sure to make that happen) and took off running. After having spent good money on that hubcap, there was no way I was going to let it go without a pursuit. I got it back, but it's obvious now that this wheel is different from the others and can't hold an original hubcap.

My session was beautiful. I don't know how else to describe it. I felt good today. Well, I always feel good. What I mean is that I felt incredibly in tune with my board and with the waves. I will thank Miki Dora, Alex Knost, Worm, Robbie Kegel, Dano and his crew, Tyler and others for that. During my free time at work this week, I spent a lot of time looking at surf blogs. This time I wasn't reading them so much as I was watching the videos that folks had posted. I've been working on style for the last year or so, but there was something in my own surfing that was not to my liking style-wise. I could never pinpoint what it was even though people have been recently using the word "style" when talking to me about my surfing. But watching all of those clips of people who are incredibly stylish made something click. I realized what it was that I was trying to achieve stylistically. It was clear as a bell. So, when I surfed today, I admonished myself to do what I'd seen all of these incredible surfers do. What's amazing is that I could feel the difference in my surfing with that one minor change in the way I was positioning my body. Someone told me today that I "showed impeccable style" on one of my waves. And what's funny is that I could feel it. That wave just felt . . . right.

I guess this means I'll be spending more time watching videos posted on surf blogs. They're definitely keeping stoke alive!