remember to say thank you
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
I sound a lot like a lot of people I've heard over the years, but lately I'm finding myself thanking everyone and everything. I will get bummed out for something that, in the scheme of things, is really really minor. Then I think about the fact that I have a great life and a great family, everyone is happy and healthy, I'm paying my bills and living in Costa Rica with the world's best job. If I complain you should just punch me in the face. Its easy to forget how good we have things. I just got news that a guy I knew in high school just died, a total wakeup call. A little boy of only 3 years old drowned in a swimming pool in El Llano, a nearby town, just this last Sunday. James used to be next door neighbors with the family. How incredibly tragic. With two very young boys it hits home and helps me remember to spend as much time as possible with my boys.
Today could have been the end of joe. Remember when that woman in the rental car accidentally drove into the surf camp and ran over the security guard? no? scroll back a year and you'll find the account, it was crazy. I ended up burying concrete-filled steel poles between the parking area and what is now my office. I'm sitting at my desk this morning and I hear a loud crashing thump, and another tourist in another rental car thought they were going in reverse and slammed forward into the concrete/steel pole directly on the other side of my office wall, literally right behind my back. Had that pole not been there, I would have had a wall and a car on top of me, which would have definitely meant no surfing tomorrow morning. I guess I'm glad I put those posts in the ground, feeling lucky like when I took my surfboards out of the Pacific Coast Storage locker less than two weeks before they were robbed and other surf shops in town got all of their inventory stolen. Lucky like when I drove a bus to Costa Rica and ended up where I'm at now.
Here's a photo my mom and dad just sent me. They're in Butte Montana with our relatives there. My uncle (or cousin or ?) Frank Hall, part of Hall Bros., they have an auto shop and have been fixing up my dad's '69 Cadillac convertible. My dad had these custom Chargers lights made for his rear bumper. All four bolts light up when the lights are on, and the outer ones blink when the blinkers are on.
What can you say about a die hard Charger fan? You can sing the San Diego Super Chargers song, thats what!
http://www.chargers.com/assets/002/11568.mp3
It is definitely getting close to football season, I hope you all are ready for Charger Fever!!! This year is definitely the year (even though I say that every year I really believe it this year).
SOME GREAT NEWS: Today we officially reached our goal for Luis Castro to receive his knee operation. Thanks to SO MANY AWESOME family and friends of the surf camp, we are currently at $3170 in donations for the operation. On September 17th at 7am Luis will be undergoing surgery to repair the damage in his knee. He will then be working in the surf shop full time while recovering. This would not have happened if it weren't for the generous donations from so many of you, THANK YOU on behalf of myself and my family, of course Luis, and everyone else here at WRSC that looks at this as you all supporting what we're doing. Its just great. Ironically today I received a new issue of Drift surf mag from England with a multi-page article of surfing in Costa Rica with a full page spread of Luis getting tubed off of Isla Uvita riding a yellow Witch's Rock LSD thruster. It all kindof started sinking in, that we're all in this together and that Luis is furthering his surfing career because of the camp, and that the camp is benefiting from having such a great crew that look at the camp as family. We're all in this together is the only way I can describe it, its a very good feeling.
As a dad, things are happening pretty quickly with my boys. Happy is starting to say DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA. What a trip. He can definitely be happy, but lately he's been more interested in screeching like a teradachtyl. I don't blame him, he's just trying to get attention while Otis commands it from everyone. Otis is getting so big its just not funny. Finally this last week he sat on the toilet and took a dump, and then went around the surf camp and told everyone (chicks mostly) that he pooped on the Potty.
Otis is going to hate me for putting these photos on my blog years from now, and yes I'm probably just being the excited dad that takes photos of the stupidest things. I'm sure you don't need to see this pic, but come on, isn't it just the cutest thing you've ever seen? Elmo's Potty Time has been on my tv nonstop for the last four months, I sing the song in my sleep. It sucks. But now all of that Elmo Potty Time has finally paid off for a single dump in the potty. Yes, I just had to change a dirty diaper upstairs about an hour ago, but one time on the potty out of 50 ain't bad.
I've got boats on my mind. Finally, FINALLY THANK GOD, we have our new Yamaha 115hp 4-stroke outboard. It is dope. New boat, new motor, new surf tour. We are starting day tours from Tamarindo going south to Camaronal. Yes, to Camaronal. This is a serious tour. There are a ton of breaks between Nosara, Garza, Samara, Carillo and Camaronal that are hardly surfed. Lost points, outer reefs, and islands. We check dozens of breaks easily by boat, find one that has great waves and nobody out, and go surf. Repeat. Repeat. Eat lunch. Surf more. You get the idea. Oh, and then there is the BIG boat, the one I am officially (THIS IS BIG) buying from Ricardo's father and completing the construction, so that WRSC has a multi-day surf boat for Nicaragua/Southern Zone CR/Panama trips. My wife thinks I'm absolutely nuts, but the way I see it, it pays to see a diamond in the rough. This is one f$%king rough looking diamond, but when I'm done with it its going to be a sweet surfing vessel with hot water, air conditioning, big screen tv, wifi, cold beers and a sun deck.
I would have taken a photo from further away but the boat is on barrels in between two houses in Coco. Its simply too big to get in one frame.
I'm posting these pics as the "Before" photos. My current plan is to get the boat in the water, tow it to Tamarindo, place it in the lot next to the hotel, and complete it here in town. I would trailer it but I worry that its too tall and would knock down the phone/power lines. Its definitely rough. I need to lower the floor, then lower the ceiling. I'm building three cabins, two heads, upgrading the galley substantially, doing tons of stuff. I will complete the project with a Skullbone Pass (www.skullbonepass.com) skull and crossbones and some cave paintings of dudes surfing, as if cavemen pirates built the boat. This will be the third boat that I've built since I moved to Costa Rica, and I still consider myself as someone who knows nothing about boats but the reality is that I know a ton, I've been using boats for seven and a half years daily and know a ton about fiberglass construction. This is where my job gets even more fun as I get to finally build my pirate ship. If anyone knows where I can find some cheap second hand cannons please email me.
I went to San Jose this last week. Besides two philly melt sandwhiches, one chicken breast salad, one Denny's gallo pinto and of course a Moons Over My Hammy, I spent some time at the 91.1 radio station making my partnership with them official. This Monday my reports started airing on the radio, I am doing three each week, Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays. I'm pretty stoked to be doing this, because I can now tell my wife that I must surf so I can do a proper report. Yes, this works. I also spent quite a bit of time dealing with some vendors of heavy equipment. Zephyr Eco Project, my startup aimed at sustainable development, is finally making good progress as we finalize the machinery we need for road construction in our finca. We already own a backhoe but are now buying a dump truck and a tractor / dozer machine for cutting/leveling/maintaining roads.
I plan to use the used cooking oil of WRSC and other restaurants in Tamarindo to fuel all of the machines, and my focus is on building/repairing/maintaining roads while seeding hillsides and preventing erosion or other negative impact associated with developing. The way I see it, I'm in a country full of bad roads. Starting up a new company that builds/fixes roads is a pretty good idea. We should have the equipment in the area in the next 60 days, so anyone who needs any earth work done, please let me know. We'll be renting the equipment with an operator by the hour, so if you have a small project we can do it. If you have a larger project and need some quality road work, we can do it too, as long as it doesn't interfere with what we're doing at the Zephyr finca. Just like when I was a kid with toy trucks, its the same thing except they're much bigger now. Why are dump trucks so freaking cool?? I have no idea.
I finally moved my family back into our house in Avellanas. I've done some repairs to our well so now we have plenty of water. The house is great. There was a nice big cow pie on my front porch when we got home the other day, as cows can and do enter our yard and hang out there. I played a game with Otis yesterday where we counted the different animals we saw from the house to the surf camp. We saw one horse, 8 cows, tons of chickens and roosters, a couple of pigs, 6 dogs, some parrots, an ox, and we heard some monkeys. Not a bad commute to work if I must say so myself.
I'm getting my toyota hilux fixed up for my trip to Panama, which is coming up quickly. Really quickly. Like in two weeks or so.... I'm putting in new suspension, new window tinting, some upgraded headlights, crap like that that people like me get excited about. My truck has gone to most every surf break from mid-Pacific Nicaragua to mid-Pacific Panama. I can't believe that my job is surfing and that I get paid to take people to great waves. I guess someone has to do it and it might as well be me. I make sure to be really thankful for the opportunity and I'm really trying hard to do the best job that I can. We've had a lot of swell these last three weeks. I've lost 15 pounds since the start of July because I've been surfing so much, theres just been tons of waves every day. I love the fact that I'm surfing great waves, often at low tide when "there is no surf in Tamarindo", by myself surfing the right off of the rivermouth with nobody out. It is amazing how often I get waves to myself down here, or with hardly anyone out. I should probably not even talk about it as to not jinx a good thing. Regardless, if you show up and aren't an asshole in the water, there are plenty of waves so lets go surf. hasta- joe