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stormy, surbable?

I took a pass this morning. the rain was hammering down at around 6:30.. in my semi-conscious state i thought i could actually hear a voice humming deep within the pattern of the rain.. it was telling me, "Staaayyy iiinnnn beeedddd!" Then the rain really started to fucking pelt down with enormous vigor onto the roof of my house. I was worried that the skylights would cave in. Then, sure enough, the skylight above my bed came crashing down, followed by a thick cascade of turbulent water. But instead of the water splashing and spreading throughout my cottage, in remained in a viscous, translucent, watery column, extending from the floor to the skylight. The rest of the room stayed dry. It was shimmering and humming. This ethereal, melodic sound radiated out and filled me with peace and harmony. The column of shimmering water called to me like a siren. Some instinct deep down within told me to be wary but i couldn't resist the seductive, liquid siren song. I got out of bed and padded slowly toward the quivering column of stationary water. I gingerly reached out my finger and... barely... tentatively... touched the thing. I half-expected some evil portend to wisk through my body.. but.. instead i was encouraged by a warming coo that began at the edge of my finger and slowly worked its way up my arm. It eventually enshrouded my entire body. I stood there with my one fingertip dunked in the vertical column of water and a subtle, deep-seeded tingle edged its way around my system. With no pre-cognition i stepped completely into the column of water. The subtle tingling coo suddenly became an onrushing, overwhelming nirvana of sensory bliss. I felt that every fiber in my body was loosening and vibrating from its previously fixed, firm position. I felt that i was oozing and softening into a deeply meditative goo. Everything was pleasurably slurring. I slowly looked down at my arm and realized that the colors and lines seemed to blur and smudge into its liquid environment. My consciousness became smoothed and smeared. My solid-state self was literally liquifying and becoming part of the column of water. Within minutes i had transformed into liquid. I no longer had a conception of the self but i felt a vague, warming knowledge of space, of congealing movement, of physical bonding to my languid medium. At that moment the entire column of water ejected out of my cottage and rocketed high into the sky. At a certain point gravity took over and the column began breaking up and coalescing into fragmented globules of rain. Minutes later i was splashing into the ground within a 5 block radius in the outer Sunset. Part of me hit the ground and ran into a gutter which ran into the sewage treatment plant which ran into the ocean a mile from sloat. Part of me fell on some guy's head and absorbed into his scalp and dislodged a memory of his long-lost dog. Part of me fell into a dying tulip pedal and acted as the last impetuous to the pedal's fall into the soil. Part of me landed on the cheek of a crying lover who longed for the return of her love. This part of me coupled with her tears as they ran down her face. She let these tears drop into her pallate of colors. She used this pallate of paint and tears and me to paint an exquisite, absract illustration of her current mind-state. Filling it with roiling sky-scapes and turbulent, virile thunderheads.

burning man ladies (photos by Patrick Roddie)

burning man dudes


Que Rico!!!

Posted by: steama at January 30, 2004 10:27 AM

article about surfing in Peurto Rico in the NYT

Posted by: e at January 30, 2004 11:14 AM

OB: my computer blew up last night so posting via internet cafe...all I can say is this morning was pretty blown and stormy but things seem to be calming down...winds down, sun out, but things still very crossed up and meaty, power like yesterday. Saw two peeps out earlier,had to leave before I saw if/when they made it out. Well OH Bombs in the back, at least an hour ago. If ya go give yourself plenty of time for the paddle out. Cheers!


Further posts subject to fixing antiquated computer. Repair guy couldn't find the power button on my laptop. Yawlp!

Posted by: s.s. sharkbait at January 30, 2004 11:47 AM

bottom turn 101

Posted by: e at January 30, 2004 02:14 PM

The sending out of UFOs has started. Some surf companies are interested enough to check it out, and test it if they like it, and some smaller shapers are putting it in boards. The critical points will come when they (meaning people I'd never met before this) start riding them and let me know how it goes...

Posted by: blakestah at January 30, 2004 03:38 PM

Hey blakestah--is your UFO a fin?

Posted by: ben at January 30, 2004 03:44 PM

The UFO is an unidentified floating object, referred to my last prototype board initially. The invention is a fin system, really a fin box.

It allows a single fin to turn from side to side. When you are going straight, the fin is rigidly centered. With enough side force, the fin breaks loose and rotates about a pivot point at the front edge of the fin. It stops at an angle we determined empirically to be optimized (it is close to the angle of a standard thruster rail fin angle). The forces manipulating the fin rotation are surprisingly high to get good performance.

With it, you can turn as hard or harder than a thruster, while paddling as easy as a single. That's the sales pitch, anyway.

After I rode it for a while, I couldn't really turn a thruster well anymore. The UFO has its pivot point around the center of the board. A thruster has its pivot point close to the rails. So, a UFO feels a lot more like a longsk8te or a snowboard in deep powder than a thruster does. And, after you ride it a little, a thruster feels a little rough around the edges - kinda like it did when you first started to learn how to make it turn. And if you ever put the UFO into a board that you previously rode as a thruster, the difference in planing early, and paddling easily, are quite noticeable. Really, the UFO turns just like you'd want a board to turn - you lean to the side, and it turns predictably. A good buddy of mine is fairly inexperienced at surfing, he couldn't turn a thruster well to begin with, and he is totally grooving on it.

People may read this and think the board is good for beginners, or longboarders, or funboarders, or some subset. Really, I don't know who will dig it yet - I hope to get people from all types of surfing to test it out and let me know.

Anyways, I am sending samples to people who make boards for sale for a living, to see how they dig it. John at SF Surfshop would be happy to make anyone a board using the new system - I gotta remember to leave a sample at the shop. If I get good feedback and people start to demand it, a company may spring forth.

Posted by: blakestah at January 30, 2004 04:13 PM

blakestah, that's rad! thanks for the explanation, I've been wondering for a while. Does the UFO fit other fin boxes, or is it a wholly specialized box? When the fin "breaks loose" is there a noticable, uh, skip in the ride, or is it a smooth transition?

Posted by: ben at January 30, 2004 04:27 PM

The UFO has its own finbox, which also allows it to be advanced or retracted in the hull (moves forwards or back) by an inch either direction.

The "breaking loose" is completely transparent. Without that mechanical effect, though, the rear of the board gets squirrely at speed. But to the rider, it is not only not noticeable when it breaks loose, but that it is turning at all. It just feels like a single fin that has tons of drive and doesn't balk when you turn hard on it. Smooth carvy turns.

Posted by: blakestah at January 30, 2004 04:32 PM

tits and tubes

kaiser made me do it..woo hoo working late!

Posted by: bagel at January 30, 2004 07:57 PM

OB: Saturday...sorry folks, it totally blew out yesterday after I posted. Sunny and very very blown today. Waah!

Happiness is a new wetsuit with a neck that fits!! Burning to try it. Come on, weather...

Posted by: s.s. sharkbait at January 31, 2004 08:50 AM

blakestah,

thats exciting news... all great inventions come from people trying new shit.

the kook cord (leash), the wetsuit, and fins that move! all from NOR CAL.

How did you ever get the idea for this?

its really fascinating!!! Call me crazy but I am stoked.

Posted by: phil young at January 31, 2004 05:38 PM

so.... that photo on the surfpulse page of that sick little left... where is that? The rockaway left? Pedro? Anybody know for sure?

Posted by: yeah at February 1, 2004 09:18 AM

The idea? I'm not sure how it came to me. I recall thinking about it on a Saturday night after everyone else was asleep, taking down some notes, and checking around to see what existed. This was last July, I think. Since then, I've become aware that ideas and probably prototypes for rotating fins have been around since at least the late 1960s. The patent literature traces to 1988, although no one has used the combination of things I have used (nor do any of the patented ideas work for reasons I have since become aware of).

Anyway, I made a prototype, to see how it went. The first few were really bad, but there was enough there to see aspects of the idea had merit. There were significant problems to overcome in making it strong enough, and making the side-to-side dynamics of the motion stable. Generic rotating fins are not stable - the fin needs to track when it is straight, too, or else its ride is kinda unsatisfying. So, eventually I made a good one, and had people ride it. Feedback was good enough I wanted to send it out to independent experts (aka professional shapers) to get feedback and see if this should be taken to the next level.

And that is where things stand now.

Posted by: blakestah at February 1, 2004 10:15 AM

blakestah...to echo others sentiments...it is very cool to hear about this endeavor of yours. I can't wait to see the setup one of these days. If things take off from a business standpoint and you need help with your financials let me know. My wife and I handle small business bookkeeping for a living.

good luck and keep the updates coming...very interesting!

jdz

Posted by: jdz at February 1, 2004 01:33 PM


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