Mikey's Homemade Shred Stick

Guest blog spot!

My friend Mike shreds the ocean for reals. He decided to take his mad skills of board repair** to the next level and shape his own board from scratch. If that's not shred-worthy, I don't know what is. Here's what he wrote about his recent experience:

"ok friends... so last week i went up to york (maine for you out of towners) to spend a week at grain surfboards (ah ok, i'll plug em: http://www.grainsurfboards.com/ ) to learn how to build my own wooden surfboard... pretty spendy (and i even slept in a tent every night), but definitely one hell of a week. i learned a bunch, and at the end of the week i walked out the door with my own handmade stick (a 5'4" steve lis inspired retro fish- 5'4"x20 1/2"x 2 5/8"), some info on a few semi-secret local surf spots, and a few good contacts/new friends within the industry (the owners of corduroy surf shop in portland maine, the entire 3-man grain board building crew, nick lavecchia (local surf photog who's beginning to blow it up on the national/international scene), and cyrus sutton and ryan tatar of korduroy tv who are doing some pretty cool things out of oregon)...

i still need to glass it, but i'm confident i can do that, and i'm pretty stoked on the whole thing. things went really well, and the grain crew was pretty impressed with my work. hopefully this is the beginning of something really cool and really big (for me)...

attached are a few pics of the process (pretty much one/day) over the course of the week.

shred free or die!
- mikey/tio pepe/el hobbito"













** Tio Pepe's board repair, while in developing countries involved some extra work, like having to go to Heladeria Arenas Blancas to eat popsicles for the sticks. It was hard to not eat Trits! Here is some photographic proof of his hard work. He seems to work on fish a lot.


Mikey and the rest of Team Jobless gets down with some helado in Mal Pais June'07


Mike working on Skully at the now defunct Blew Dog's, June '07


Mikey back to work on the the Porch of Las Brisas, Bocas Del Toro January '08

I Left My Brain in San Francisco - Part 2: Food is Pretty

Did I mention food-centric? Christina and I started at the farmers' market at the Ferry Building on Saturday.

Chilaquiles? Check
Crab cake sandwich? Yes please.

A little break was necessary after ingesting all of that food. Thankfully we had a nice view of the Bay Bridge.

Somehow, even though I felt I was unnecessarily full, I managed to eat some raw oysters at Ferry Plaza Seafood. This was all washed down with some of SF's finest beer: Anchor Steam. PS - Check out the Anchor Steam Brewery Tour. I've been in the past. Totally worth it.

Oysters. Who knew they were so tasty?

After some cardio (aka shopping) we cabbed it to the Mission to check out a food festival. Yes, it is entirely possible to imagine eating more. We managed to see this bike posse twice! Maybe they stopped and had cocktails, too. The food festival was actually pretty lame, so we went to the Front Porch to indulge in some shrimp and grits, cornbread and all sorts of other tasty treats and cocktails. After that, I powered through my power nap. So much for a big night out in SF.

Sunday involved a little trip to the ballpark...

a good laugh at the Segway Tour...

Christina's charcuterie setup...

...and a nightcap of some Bi-Rite salted caramel ice cream and watermelon beer at the 21st Amendment.

Thanks to Christina, Kirk and Chase for taking me around all weekend. I love your city!

I Left My Brain in San Francisco - Part 1

I recently purchased a new cell phone to replace the one I had bought in Thailand last year. I think I liked it because it was so small and made phone calls. What else could I possibly need? I have since realized I love this new phone. However, I can't seem to figure out how to properly type and have found myself sending messages and email that aren't always completely composed. Sorry to all who receive them.

Anyway, the phone has since come in super handy for all things fun. Like taking all sorts of silly pictures the other weekend in San Francisco.

The evening began with a trip to the liquor store near my friend Christina's apartment. We couldn't very well show up empty handed, so we brought some tall boys. I don't understand why the store owner thought it would be a good idea to put a bottle of wine and 6 tall boys into a flimsy paper bag, but whatevs.
Christina had to show us up with some sweet tea vodka and the most delicious pasta I've had in a while.

Kirk decided to class up some Mickey's with ginger. Why? Because you can.

We took a trip to the Buccaneer, just down the street in Russian Hill. The night seemed to come full circle with a reference to one of my earlier drinks:

Who knew that this was to be the kickoff to the most food-centric weekend? Certainly not me.
I should note that somehow all of this food eating and cocktail imbibing had a negative affect on my thinking skills. I can't say that I had one particularly dumb moment. Oh wait, I did....

Summer Bummer

My bike got stolen. Again. In my defense, I had it locked this time. What I'll miss most is the pretty bell that my friend Christina brought back for me from Paris. The first on on my other (stolen) bike was also a gift from her.


The best part of this bell, obviously, was the weird, cartoony bug with sunglasses. I don't think I'll be asking for another French bell until I somehow figure out how to keep my things from thieves.

Let's shred!

I'm not really good at timely posting. So be it. I'll blame this very late post for the Six Man Volleyball Tournament on a long, slow recovery. I'd never been to this tournament, thinking it was just some drunk-fest full of people I could care less about. But I was pleasantly surprised: it was, in fact, a drunk-fest. However, it wasn't completely full of people I would hate.

Case in point: the team wearing shirts that summed up the M.O. of this summer.
Let's shred!


Also of note: Team Jorts


jeans + shorts = jorts
What a magical equation.

No one sleeps...

No surprise here: Maja and the Sounds rocked it at their show at the Key Club.

She Wolf!

Shakira - New Music - More Music Videos

Love it!

I think she wolves are cooler than cougars. Cougar-doodles are another story entirely...