I checked my inbox here on word press and as it turns out today is the nine year anniversary of SurfingRuinedMyLife.net. Yeah; I haven’t wrote a piece in quite a while mainly due being pressed for time and a lack of reason to write. Ever since the Surflog took over as my day to day life happenings I have not really seen the need to write about it here. For my regular readers I feel it would just be a horrid redundancy. Maybe if something really special happens, but even then it for the most part it gets covered daily in the surf log.
After nine years I figured I may as well write about a few revelations I have had in both my life, surfing and blogging. At the very least it may shed some light on why I have been rather quite as of late. Why not get back up to speed on thing. The last time I wrote was New Years day of last year. I’d say its about time to sound off.
A Brief History
Bear with all the photos, these are my 63 favorite posted on here over the last nine years. Its been a pretty wild ride to say the least and if you had told me I would still be alive and writing in 2019 I would have said you were crazy. In all my stupidity and gnarly endeavors some how I didn’t die. Lets grab a quick history on how this blog came about.
It all started back in 1991 at age ten when I stood up on my boogie board and began surfing, had that never happened there would be no SurfingRuinedMyLife.net. From there the obsession progressed from a fun childhood activity, to amateur competition, to the professional stage and then life after professional surfing and coping with such. The written word began when I was in fifth grade and was forced to keep a daily journal by my English teacher Mr. Gestry. There were a couple of adolescent journals (one I still have on my book shelf) before then, but nothing of any concrete literacy. I liked the idea of writing and continued to fill volumes of black and white note books for years after. All of which were destroyed when the crawlspace of my parents beach house flooded in 2014.
In 2002 while rehabbing a knee injury a buddy of mine and I launched a surf and music website called Hard Core Surf Productions. It was basically a surf and music blog before blogging was really a thing. That lasted around two years, halted because I forgot to renew the URL and we lost it. Right around that time I started surfing for Globe Shoes and it was also the height of MySpace. Part of my rider obligation was to keep a blog on Myspace of my surfing escapades. It would later lead to a weekly segment on Globe’s website. During this time period I penned a number of mixed surf media pieces that got published. 2008 was a black year for everyone in America as the housing market crashed along with countless banks. So did the surf industry. All of a sudden every average pro surfer got cut from payroll and smaller companies didn’t even survive.
I was one of those pros getting paid to pretty much do nothing but fuck off and party, thus pulling the plug on me was not a hard decision. As a matter of fact Globe just about pulled out of surfing in America all together. Devastated I ended up taking a job at a gas station as the night manager (of course the only person I managed was myself). I had lots of time on my hands at work and continued blogging on Myspace. My readership was steadily falling off as Facebook was taking over and Myspace began to be the home of sexual predators.
My good friend Nick Kiefer suggested I create my own website blog and call it “Surfing Ruined My Life” after a short autobiographical sketch I did called “How Surfing Ruined My Life” and that is how this blog was born in 2009. At that point I was a literary ronin. This left me total freedom to write about and sound off on anything I felt like and when the satirical and comedic ranting and complaining took over the blog. As a result it was as the about section claims more gibberish then surfing.
Soon sub sections were added like the surflog, recipes etc. The only thing that really remains updating today is the surflog. My life kind of began to fall apart on me in my early thirties. Feeling a bit like a rebel with out a cause I went a course of downward spiral of heavy drinking and partying. That lasted till around 2015 or so when I slowly began pulling my life out of the gutter. The process of which left me very little time or even patience for blogging. Maybe it was even a reminder of all the years I pissed away. The hardest part has been figuring out how to define myself or this period of life without using the millennial word (which I hate) ADULTING.
I suppose that brings us to now, August twenty first two thousand and nineteen, the ninth year commemoration that you are now reading. The first thing I have written besides the surflog since January 2018. Let me say with out spoiling the rest of this blog that I have for the first time in almost twenty years found a balance in my life allowing for a healthy homeostasis that includes all of my favorite activities. Things are good or as good as they can ever be, cause we all know how I feel about declaring that one’s life is good. It is a cop out to stop trying to improve. We were always meant to improve ourselves. Here are a few brief Surfingruinedmylife.net topics I want to touch on.
The Surf log
Actually let me take a moment to reiterate a few things about the surflog since I have fielded some questions about how it works and the like. In all fairness it has evolved quite a bit over the years. Basically I am like Rain Man when it comes to stats. I love them. When I was a kid Nick Carroll wrote an editorial in the now defunct Surfing Magazine about how many waves he surfed and a lamentation for not being able to remember. This sparked the beginning of the surf log. When I was a kid I would write down the surf conditions, who I surfed with, and any notables from the surf every day.
I gave it up as a adult, which is a shame cause I wish I had some data from all of the surf trips and amazing days I scored during that epoch of my life. When I started this blog I decided, why not have a surflog section. At first it was just where I surfed, the conditions and session notables. Then I started keeping track of the number of waves I surfed and how log I was out there for. A few years ago I was having a conversation with one of my friends who was eluding to how many miles I drove a week to surf. From that meeting I began diligently keeping track of the round trip mileage from my apartment to my surf destination, including any surf checks that are out of the way. At this point I can say with proof that I drive upward of 350 miles a week on average to surf.
When I don’t surf I still make an entry usually, about my life and why I didn’t surf. The conditions report is from the Surfline.com afternoon C-Street Ventura report. If I am out of town land locked this is the conditions report I use. If I am someplace that is surf-able but its flat or I don’t get in the water I use the report for that area or my own eyes. This also goes for days I drive around looking for surf and find nothing. Plenty of times Surfline is calling it 2-3+ ft and its barely knee high.
There have been some altercations and incidents as a result of the surflog. Some people happily use it as tool to find good waves to surf and get a better understanding of surfing in the Ventura/Santa Barbara area. To those guys I am stoked to help you score. When I first moved here I was clueless and had to learn from other kind surfers. All I ask is that when you show up to the break be respectful, follow the rules of the line up and don’t bring too many people at one time.
Then there are the antagonists. There are surfers out there who blame me for blowing up spots. For the most part every wave I write about here is on surfline anyway. I am not giving away any secrets. Still I will run into some ass in the water who will burn me and be a dick because of my writings. Sorry bud, but California is overcrowded as is the surfing experience here. Its not my fault. I am just a minute part of the problem.
Sometimes I fall a little behind. This is for three reasons. Either the surf is so good that I am exhausted when I get home and just pass out, My work schedule is insane on top of my surf schedule leaving me no time to update or I don’t want to give away a sand bar or spot that has just started popping off, thus I will wait two or three days till either the swell wanes or the crowd finds its way with out my help. Its usually the later.
2019
Its been a decent though hectic year for me. I am still doing freelance chef work in Santa Barbara and beyond and extensively building my resume and experience as a chef allowing me to get to a level I never saw myself excelling to. Sometimes cooking all the time can be a real drag. It does leave me with a flexible schedule to surf. I have always enjoyed feeding and making people happy with my craft.
I am still with my current girl friend now three and half years in. We got a cute Snow Shoe Siamese Cat named Charles who is now one year old. The relationship is going great and maybe the most positive one I have been part of. Alfie is still alive. That is probably the hardest thing to believe. He is sixteen and half years old and besides having some arthritis, and being near sighted he gets on just fine. Bizarro still lives with me and is still an avid partner in crime when it permits.
My surf board business Clarks Surfboards is in its fourth year and we are starting to almost make a small profit I think? Its been hard, but tons of fun too. I am just a proud parent of how the whole operation is shaping up, no pun intended. The boards ride and look great and are priced starting at $450. If you want one hit me up. Mention you read it here I’ll give you $25 off.
Other then that I still manage to make it to the Wild Cat on occasion, though rarely (for me). I got a few big things cooking (also no pun intended) for the future that I don’t want to go into here. As usual I just “keep on keeping on” cause that’s all any of us can do. Happy Anniversary everyone. If you feel so inclined leave something in the comments on your feelings, a memory, a suggestion, a photo or anything else that came to your mind while reading this post. Thank you all for reading…..Chris
Surfing Ruined My Life 