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Archive for November, 2010

Lisanti Book Club, Book V: Wuthering Heights

Posted in Lisanti Book Club, tagged , , , , , , , on November 14, 2010| 1 Comment »

Book V: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, First Published 1847, 320 pages

After a brief foray into American Literature we will take a turn back into British Lit with Wuthering Heights. This novel is considered by many to be one of the greatest romantic stories ever written.  At the time of publication Bronte was highly criticized for writing it on subject matter ahead of its time.  She died only a year after the publishing of the book.  I just started this one today and at my current rate of finishing you should have no problem keeping up.

Summary of Book IV: The Morgesons by Elizabeth Stoddard

When I first picked this one up I did not know what to think having very little foresight on the author, but she was highly acclaimed so I figured what could it hurt especially at 50 cents.  For the first hundred pages or so the novel was fairly slow going and truthfully if it was not for my “The Captain goes down with the ship” attitude I probably would have put it down.  Soon after though the story and the characters begin to take shape.  Upon completion of the book I believe that the characters and their interaction with one another may have been more the focus then the actual story itself.  Whatever the case everyone is rather peculiar making it more then worth a read.

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Shrimp In A Coconut Curry

Posted in Recipe D'Jour, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 12, 2010| 5 Comments »

Shrimp In a Coconut Curry Over Egg Noodles

This is a bit of Thai or Malaysian cuisine and something I sort of borrowed from the college kitchen making some minor embellishments.  It makes for a very unique and elegant meal sure to empress both the eye and taste buds.  This one is definitely a bit on the expensive side.  If your on a tight budget leave out the pine nuts and okra.

 

Total Cost: 16.18
Feeds about 4 people

Ingredient List:

  • Shrimp – 1lb
  • Coconut Milk – 14 oz
  • Coconut – 1/3 Cup (Shredded)
  • Salt – Tablespoon
  • Pepper – Teaspoon
  • Garlic – 3oz (minced)
  • Bay Leaves – Teaspoon (Dry, minced)
  • Bamboo Shoots – 8oz (Chopped)
  • Thyme  – Teaspoon
  • Egg Noodles – 1lb
  • Peas – 15 oz
  • Leeks – 4 oz
  • Okra – 12 oz
  • Pine Nuts – 6 oz (roasted)
  • Thai basil – ½ cup, Fresh (Chopped)
  • Chili – 1 dry (minced)
  • Ginger – 1 tablespoon (minced)
  • Olive Oil – 1 tablespoon
  • Butter – ½ tablespoon

 

Step 1: Cook Egg Noodles – In a large boiling pot bring water to a boil and add Egg noodles.  Stir occasionally.  Let boil for around 12-15 minutes or until noodles are soft.

 

Step 2: Boil Coconut Milk – Pour Coconut milk into a small sauce pot and bring to a boil.

 

Step 3: Cook the Shrimp – In a wok (or large frying pan) melt ½ a tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon of Olive Oil.  When completely dissolved add shrimp, ginger, Thai Basil, Chili, Okra, Pine nuts, Leeks, Thyme, Salt, Pepper, Peas, Bamboo Shoots and Bay Leaves.  Sauté for around ten minutes, stir constantly. Then add coconut milk and let simmer for another ten minutes.  Stir in shredded coconut.

 

Step 4: Put It All Together – Put egg noodles in plate and pour Shrimp and Vegetable mixture over it.  Sprinkle some shredded coconut on top and enjoy!

 

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I Had a Dream

Posted in Deep Thoughts, Life, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 11, 2010| 1 Comment »

Kooky Kyle after taking a brief UCB winner vacation quit sleeping on the job and claimed what I believe to be his fourth victory this quarter (it may be third I don’t really know, don’t ever count them till the end).  He asked if I have had any good dreams lately or if I dream at all.  This question pertaining to latent dreams of course as far as future dreams go I have given up on those altogether.

Truth be told I don’t have too many dreams at all or at least those I can remember.  Science claims that the human subconscious dreams pretty much the entire time we are in REM State and through out most of the night as well.  I have the long term memory of a chicken and the short term memory of a cat thus making me pretty much a step above being retarded.  If can barely remember anything while Im awake how can I possibly be able to remember what goes on while Im in slumber land?

Here are some typical dreams I do remember because they have been reoccurring in one form or another.  The foremost is car crash dreams.  I don’t know why but I always have dreams where I have been in a car crash, caused a car crash or just witnessed one happening but in most cases I am involved in the cause of the crash.  Dream analysts claim that such dreams are symbolic of how our psyche feels about what it is experiencing in waking life.  This makes sense considering my life has pretty much been a 29 year train wreck.

While we are on the car crash dream subject I would like to relay a pretty entertaining dream I had a week ago or so: John Mauriello and I worked for a Starbucks here in Santa Barbara, but our job there was to make sandwiches and cook lunch items.  We were shitty employees always coming in late, leaving early and mostly slaking off while there.  Our boss, the owner was this stingy Indian guy (when I say Indian I mean a person from India and not the tepee building ones) who always wore sweater vests and thought he was cool cause he loved hip-hop.  John and I also rented a garage apartment in his house.

The guy hated us but for whatever reason he did not fire us.  One day my old roommate Cory Kiesel showed up at our apartment in a white jacked up ford F-350 pick up truck telling us we had to go with him to the SB airport to pick up Rapper Heavy D and that him and Heavy D were going to LA to cut an album together.  We picked up Heavy D all blinged out with a grill, chains and fixings that go along with that description and headed back to the apartment.  Upon pulling into the apartment the breaks failed and we drove right into the living room of the house.

At first my boss was furious but when Heavy D stepped out into his living room dude was all chill.  Then over dinner he worked out a deal to manage the Cory/Heavy D act. Damn crafty Indians.  I think the dream went on from there but that is all I can remember.

Another set of dreams I experience regularly are falling dreams.  Apparently these dreams represent a sense of failure or feeling of inferiority.  Falling dreams can also represent a feeling of being overwhelmed or that your life is out of control.  Wow Im a mess.

I also on a regular basis have dreams about drowning as well.  Not really about drowning while surfing, just drowning in general.  Usually when one of these occurs I wake up gasping for air and sweating.   Turns out Drowning dreams represent a feeling of being overwhelmed or that you are feeling threatened.

Sometimes after a hard day at work I go to sleep and dream Im still there.  Like when I first started making pizzas at Westmont that entire week I dreamed of nothing but making pizzas all night long.  I have always had dreams that I was still at work even though I was home sleeping in my bed.

I occasionally have strong sexual dreams some so vivid that I actual wake up wondering if I had sex (no Im not talking about black outs).  Sexual dreams can symbolize the obvious or also occur at times when one needs a certain release from pent up tension.  I guess Im a basket case when one takes the time to analyze my dreams or the few that I can remember.  I can only imagine the shit I conjure up that I don’t recall.  Well fuck dreams maybe that is why Im an insomniac.  I’ll sleep when Im dead.

I dont know what kind of dream this would symbolize????!!!?

Im sure Heavy D knows whats up.

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The Champion’s Champion: Kelly Slater Turns 10!

Posted in Surfing, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 8, 2010| 6 Comments »

How many fingers am I holding up?

By now I think everyone in the surfing world unless you live under a rock knows that Kelly Slater has achieved the unimaginable; winning an unprecedented 10th world title and claiming his 45th world championship tour victory.  The man has broken just about every competitive record there is in surfing and raised the bar so high we may never see such a surfing champion again.  It will take some pretty phenomenal surfing talent to undo the Kelly Slater dynasty.

More then all the stats and records Slater was as stoked as anyone to win.  You think after nine ten would be just another notch on the belt, but you could see just from the look on his face the amount of emotion going through him as he was chaired up the beach in Puerto Rico.  Then when most people would be ready to celebrate he went out and won the whole dam event.  All bull shit aside, judging, favoritism or whatever Slater truly claimed this years world title on pure ability.

The guy surfed flawless and not just Kelly Slater flawless but at the par of the so called “modcol” generation.  The guy pulled off one of the craziest ally oops I have ever seen, falling completely off his board and some how recovering at Bells Beach, event two.  He stuck another ridiculous full rotation ally oop at the Portugal event.  Kelly has been throwing down on the gnarly aerial maneuvers the entire season on top of his usual blend of flow and power.  Im not even going to get started on that backside reo he pulled at Trestles another event he won that from the first heat he set the bar so much higher then anyone else out there.

The only other surfer who was really worth watching for comparative ability this year was Dane Reynolds.  Not in contest statistics per say but in just the aspect of pure go for broke performance.  Dane has consistently surfed the best wave or maneuver in just about every event on tour this year.  Some of the stuff he sticks is outlandish for a free surf or video segment let alone a contest.

The problem with Dane is his ability to put a heat together in terms of points, but you know what I don’t think anyone cares how Dane finishes just as long as he does well enough to stay on tour.  Personally I would be really sad if decided to fit his surfing into a mold just so he could win a few more heats.  Its about time we got someone out there who just goes for it no matter the consequence.  Dane my hat is off to you as well.

As for you Kelly, great job now lets bring the magic through to Hawaii and take the Triple Crown and Pipe Masters as well making it a banner year.  I know I have been saying for the entire year that I hope he takes his tenth and then retires, but after watching his performance on tour this year I really hope Kelly sticks around.  I would really like to see how many more victories the guy has in him.  Could Kelly Slater be a forty year old world champ?

http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/tracing-kelly-slaters-career-defining-2010_49310/ This is a great video up on Surfline.com on Slater’s amazing title journey this year.  Watch it and see some of the crazy waves I was talking about.

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October 2009; Oh How You Are Missed.

Posted in Blast from the Past: 2009, Surfing, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 7, 2010| 1 Comment »

Yesterday we ran the top five sessions from this October being a La Nina year. Today I though it would be fun to write about the best five sessions from last October, the El Nino year and compare the two.  Since it is technically a continuation of Devin’s UCB from yesterday (see What a Difference a Year Makes) he will get a half point for his efforts.  My records from last year were not as good as this year so these are the best out of what I had written down.

 

5: Rincon Cove, Wednesday 10/14, 8:30am: 3-5ft Bumpy Glass, No one out!

Wednesday marked the third straight day of torrential down pour, the first time it has rained here since May. In that three-day span I think we picked up at least five inches of rain. With rain comes run off and you can only imagine how dirty the runoff is after nearly 6 months of no rain. The result was near toxic water at all river mouth fed breaks (basically every spot here). Coming down there was plenty of swell, Santa Clause Lane in Carpenteria, usually a small shadowed beachie was solid head high and clean.

When Santa Clause looks like that I know to immediately go to Rincon. I pulled into the parking lot and there were only about 5 cars, a bad sign already that it was not working. I on intuition walked down anyway. In front of me was The Cove section of the point with two guys out and lines running all the way past the call box at the bottom of the point, a solid 100 yard plus ride. It looked a little mushy and disorganized but far from something to walk away from.

I ran back to my car and got dressed. The water was completely brown and there was certainly a healthy amount of garbage and dead animals floating around, but the waves too good to stop me. As I was paddling out the two guy who where surfing got out leaving the place all to me. I surfed the cove alone for a solid hour before five other guys showed up, ten guys at the height of the crowd. I ended up surfing till 12:30pm a solid four hours and my legs burned so bad from the absurdly long rights that I almost could not make the walk back up the trail.

I think it is safe to say that number 5 from last year was far better then 5 this year.

 

4: Little Rincon, Thursday, 10/15, 8:30am: 4-6ft Oil Glass

Manasquan stalwart Kevin Malone decided to make his first winter pilgrimage to Santa Barbara this year and lucked into what I think is the best Little Rincon I have ever surfed. That’s a lie cause number three was the best Little Rincon I have ever surfed. Brook-o actually was the guy who tipped me off on the place although I was rather skeptical since the tide was super high, almost 5ft (Little Rincon barely breaks sometimes on low tide). Not believing his usually overzealous surf reports I had a look at Rincon first, which turned out to completely swamped with the excessive high tide causing me to give Littlie Con’ a shot. Sure enough when Lindsay, Malone and I pulled up I saw a set wave brush the top of the little pier that goes out to this fake little island built by the oil companies for the rigs that created the wave. When that happens you know its solid 6ft at least.

The crowd was light only about 6 heads out and it looked pretty mellow. Sometimes Little Rincon can have a pretty agro crowd and since there is really only one take off zone in front of gnarly rocks 6 guys could be too crowded. This day however that was not the case and there were actually so many waves in each set and good in between waves that lots of waves actually went unridden. I started on my 5’10 but quickly due to the power and intensity had to move to my bigger board, which completely turned the session around.

Before that happened on my second wave I took off super late and deep after this guy sitting deeper then me got hung up in the lip dropping in. I was deep and late but totally confident that I was going to make it. I grabbed my rail and set up for a quick little pig dog off the drop. I guess this older guy sitting a little down the line from me thought that was the end of me and decided to go for the wave underestimating my ability. I ended up coming out of the bottom of the foam ball straight into my bottom turn only to look up at what I expected to be the falling lip I was anticipating on hitting. Instead I see this dude coming right down on top of me. I quickly attempted to torque the section gabbing my rail to cut my bottom turn shorter, but it was to no avail and the guy landed square on top of me. I don’t know what happened but what I do know is someone was looking out for me cause somehow I did not get hurt and my board was fine. Dude was super apologetic and considering the difficulty of the wave I was attempting to make I did not make a big deal of it.

3: 10/23/09 – Little Rincon 6-8ft

The swell went nuts. I was awoken by a call from Dave that Little Rincon was going berserk with the occasional 12 footer sweeping over the pier and cleaning up the entire line up. I grab my 6’1 round tail and I needed every inch of it. It was solid 6-8ft with occasional 10-12ft sets. There were about 15 guys on it but only three of us wanted anything to do with the bombs. I caught some of the best waves I have ever ridden at that spot or even Santa Barbara for that matter.

This is me on one of the small ones from this session

2: 10/24/09 – Pitas 4-6ft+

I got the best Pitas Pt I have ever surfed in my life. It was only about head high to slightly overhead but not a drop of water out of place. Pitas is a very sectiony point unlike Rincon despite its similar proximity in size. Usually if you can bang out three turns or get a quick barrel your stoked on your ride. This session however the lines were just running down the point connecting each section. You still had to be very fast but on the right one the rides had to be close to 300 yards. Did I mention there were barrels too? The crowd at its max was 15 guys and no one was hassling.  My very last wave I rode from the top of the point all the way to the top of Mondos, which is probably close to a 700 yard ride.  To this day it is still the best Pitas I have ever surfed.

 

1: 10/26/09 – Rincon 5-7ft

I had some friends from NJ visiting for this session and it blew their minds.  I was skeptical on how big it would be, but as we began to get in gazing distance of the top of the point I could tell just by looking at the swells hitting La Conchita that Rincon was solid. I was just sitting there in the back of the car saying “We have to turn around, Rincon is really really good”. Then we passed the point from the highway where it comes into full view and everyone was screaming with pure stoke.

From there it was a mad dash into our wetsuits and down the point, despite one salty local whom I surf with everywhere who upon seeing me with four friends shook his head at me. C’mon due its fucking Rincon. It’s no secret spot and there were 100 people out already anyway. What is four more at that point? California surfers really piss me off with shit like that.

As we come out of the trail and behold the line up it was pretty amazing. Everywhere you looked someone was getting barreled. It was almost stupid. The place looked like a beach break but it was Rincon. The crowd was focused between Lower Indicator and High to

Mid River Mouth. I opted to surf Low River Mouth, High Cove where there was only a handful of people sitting and still plenty of great waves to be had, plus on a 5’9 I was a little under gunned for the well overhead bomb sets coming off the top of the point. I still had to grab my rail on some of my bottom turns to keep from maxing out. I did not bring a bigger board cause I was not expecting there to be so much swell.

Everyone got some really epic waves. Charles was in serious awe of the wave. I think for the rest of his trip if not still mystified by the whole experience. The wave can be a real siren for some. It is the reason I gave up my entire life and moved out here. Alex got some good ones but unfortunately had some equipment malfunctions, ripping out one of the fins off his Merrick keel fish. Then he went back to the car and borrowed Dave’s long board which he subsequently lost to the rocks dinging both the nose and the tail. Mark was buzzing on his new J7, no surprise considering it was Keoni’s magic board. That left a very stoked Dave and I who traded super fun waves in the cove practically to ourselves till we could not see anymore. The whole crew was stoked as could be.
Well I think it is pretty clear that 2009 in October kicked this year in the ass by a landslide.

Nothing like the beautiful view of open face in front of you.

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What a Difference a Year Makes: October 2010

Posted in Surfing, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 6, 2010| 1 Comment »

This week the UCB gods, err; just me actually (I am in no way insinuating that I am The God or a god although I could be a god, but I would just settle for leader of some type of sick twisted cult that wears all black sneakers with bright orange shoe laces, spandex shorts and white netted tank tops and worships the invention of processed cheese in a can) makes a winner out of my friend Devin who suggested I do a comparison blog on the surf of last season (being the start of NW season is September and runs through May) to this one.  I thought it a rather good idea and not just worthy of a UCB but a new monthly segment.  As a result for his genius (Devin may really be a genius, he definitely is one of the smartest people I know) I will award him 2 points!

Here is how this segment is going to work.  At the close of every month I will pick my five favorite sessions for the Surf Log and compare them to my favorite 5 sessions from Last winter’s unprecedented near epic El Nino season.  I will also throw down a by the numbers on how many sessions I had for the month, how many days I surfed and which spots I surfed the most.  Enjoy!

October 2010 by the numbers:

Number of Sessions – 31
Days Surfed – 25
Average Wave Height – 2-3ft

Surf Spots

New Jetty – 9
Rincon – 7
River Mouth – 4
C Street – 3
Emma Wood – 3
Pitas – 2
Hollywood – 1
Jalama – 1
Leo Carrillo – 1

Top 5 Sessions

5: 10/13/10 AM Session – 2-4ft, Leo Carrillo
I had high hopes for this session, but when I got to Ventura it was foggy, cold, windy and small.   This led me to car surf for over two hours before using the benefit of intel from both my friends Ryan and Devin I decided to go to Malibu for some late season south swell action and better winds.  I met Devin at Leo where it was a bit inconsistent but fun chest to head high peaks coming in with a light crowd of ten or so sitting on the rock.  Leo is a super tight line up so on an inconsistent day like this ten was still almost too crowded.  I had the whole day and in the course of a three and a half hour session managed to surf a bunch of fun rights despite the typical rude selfish L.A. surf mentality.

4: 10/14/10 PM Session – 2-4ft, Santa Clarita River Mouth
I never have high hopes for an after work session especially if I have to go to Ventura where more times then not the wind is going to be on it.  The Cstreet cam was showing clean chest to head high waves coming in behooving me to believe that the harbor would have good conditions also. I headed that way figuring on surfing New Jetty, but upon checking it noticed that the late season south swell was working its magic on the ledgey sand bars at river mouth, a sight I have not seen since late spring time this year.  I called this new guy at work Kevin, who met me in the parking lot at the knoll and together with about five other guys spread along 8 different peaks we enjoyed glassy slab lefts.  It was a fucking below sea level, backless barrel fest.

3: 10/5/10 AM Session – 2-4+ft, New Jetty

Its pretty ironic that today was also what I would call a “Jersey Session” except unlike yesterday I am using it to describe an awesome surf.  The wind was offshore, a California rarity, sure there is always that myth about “Santa Anna Winds”.  They blow for like a day and a half.  I think if I see a dozen true offshore days a year out here it is a lot.  This morning was one of them.  I pulled up to New Jetty and Im not going to lie it looked a little fat with the high tide and around eight guys one it not making it look all that fun. Then after ten minutes of watching I saw a left or two a bit up the beach from the usual take off spot suck out and throw.  That was enough for me.  What ensued was an onslaught of barrels.  If I did 12 turns the entire session it was a lot.  I got pitted off my ass on left and right keggers all fucking morning till the wind went side shore at noon but it was fine cause I had been out since around 8:30.

2: 10/15/10 AM Session – 3-5ft, Jalama
There is nothing like getting a break from humanity and making the trek up to Jalama especially with no wind and a holding south swell.  Conditions were glassy and the sand bars have finally gotten back to normal allowing for plenty of fun barrels.  I ended up cruising up with Lindsay being her first time there she was more then amped on the conditions. Crowd was surprisingly heavy with a solid thirty guys from T-Cracks to inside Tarantulas.  I mean this time of year your lucky if there are more then five guys out, but the water was crazy warm so I guess it evens out and besides I still got a ton of great waves.    I also found out they sell a Jalama pass for $44 bucks for the year.  Im all over that.

1: 10/29/10 – AM Session – 4-6ft, River Mouth

There are good surf session, there are great surf session and then there are sessions that go down as all time. This morning at River Mouth was one of the latter. It was a barrel factory out there. The first hour was nothing but perfect left and right hand draining barrels with light offshore winds. By 11am I had gotten so many deep barrels I had lost count. It reminded me of really good Hatteras. Everywhere you looked someone was getting spit out of a tube or there was a perfect cylinder running through unridden. After three solid hours the wind came up ending one of the better sessions I have had this fall and in the last six months.

***If you like these little synopses of my surf sessions feel free to visit my surf log on this blog where I post my surf sessions daily.***

Here is my favorite picture of me from October and also from the best session as well.

This guy is all ready to join the cult.

mmmmmm...processed cheese in a can

Stay tuned for last October’s comparisons tomorrow!

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Potato Skins

Posted in Recipe D'Jour, tagged , , , , , , on November 5, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Potato Skins

With or without sour cream its your choice!

Potato skins are great for any occasion. They make a great snack, appetizer, side dish or party favor.  They are fairly cheap and rather easy to make and are sure to please just about anyone.  With football season in full swing potato skins make a perfect Sunday game snack.

Cost: $5.75

Feeds 4 people

Ingredient List:

  • Russet Potatoes – 5
  • Bacon – 4 strips
  • Cheddar Cheese – 2 oz grated
  • Mozzarella Cheese – 2 oz grated
  • Green Onions – 1 oz chopped
  • Heavy Cream – 1/3 cup
  • Paprika – 1 tea spoon
  • Salt – 1 tea spoon
  • Pepper – ½ tea spoon
  • Sour Cream – 3 table spoons (optional)

 

Step 1: Bake Potatoes – Bake four potatoes in oven at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes to an hour.

 

Step 2: Prep your skins – After removing your potatoes from oven let cool to a comfortable working temperature.  With a spoon hallow out inside of potato being weary to not compromise the structure of the shape of skin.  Save inside in a bowl it will be used for the stuffing for your skin.

Here is your hallowed out skins and left over insides.

Step 3: Create Stuffing – Peel remaining potato and boil in water for around 25 minutes or until adequately soft.  In a small saucepot combine boiled potato and the saved potato insides from step 2 and mash together till you have a sort of potato paste.  Pour in heavy cream, Salt and pepper and bring to a boil.  Stir at boiling temperature for around 5 minutes, then let simmer for another 5 minutes or till mixture begins to thicken.  Chop your bacon into pits and put into mixture. Add Cheddar (1.5 oz), Mozzarella (1.5 oz) and paprika and stir it into mixture till you have almost like a gummy blob.

Your finished stuffing.

Step 4: Fill Skins – Take hallowed out skins from step 1 and fill equally with filling created in step three.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and bake filled skins for around 5-8 minutes.  Pull out skins and add remaining Mozzarella and Cheddar cheese dispersed equally to the tops of each skin and put back into oven around 3-5 minutes, just long enough to melt the cheese. Pull skins out and top with sour cream and green onions.

 

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A Great Loss to Surfing: Andy Irons 1978-2010

Posted in Deep Thoughts, Life, Surfing, tagged , , , , on November 4, 2010| 2 Comments »

The man and his larger then life image.

I got out of the water Tuesday night after a Hammonds nightmare session (see Surf Log for more details on that) only to find a text message from my boy JD back in NJ.  It read “Andy Irons Died”.  I did not believe it although considering the source there was no reason for him being a devoted AI fan himself to pull my leg.  Then I got like six more texts about it before I got home.  I ran home and checked surfline.com and sure enough Andy was dead from possibly Dengue Fever.  Read more on that here: http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/andy-irons-rip—three-time-world-champ-passes-away-surfing-world-in-shock_49481/.

I have never really been an Andy fan per say.  I respect his surfing ability and the perseverance it took to win three consecutive world titles.  One thing I have to give him credit for is that he did what he wanted.  While most guys on tour play the good politically correct role he said whatever was on his mind and always spoke the truth.  If the judges made a bullshit call he was the first to claim it.

The last few years he sort of fell into the background in surfing till recently when he accepted the WT wild card for 2010.  His performance on tour was less then stellar but he did manage a victory at this years Tahiti comp.  Personally I had nothing but negativity toward the guy mostly because the surfing media brain washed me to choose either the Slater camp or the Irons camp of which I chose the former.

For what its worth his loss saddened me.  No matter how I felt about his media portrayed persona AI was a surfer who loved to surf as much as possible just as I do.  Now he will never be able to surf upon this earth again.  He truly was a gifted surfer and one of surfing’s favorite sons.  He will be missed and his passing definitely leaves a hole in the surf world.  I think I will dedicate the remainder of my surf sessions in 2010 to Andy.

AI always went big.

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